January | 2016 | The Pretentious Title

I have been a student for the majority of my life. When I say “student,” I don’t just mean books and classes, I mean clubs and extracurriculars, I mean fast friendships and long library visits. I mean tight schedules, long meetings with itineraries spanning three full pages, and full days camped out at coffee shops. “Student” for me is a lifestyle, a full time job that requires a part-time job to finance it, and a constant reminder that there is more to learn, more to know, more to create.

In my third year of university, the blur of colour in my iCal of appointments stacked on classes, stacked on part-time employment, stacked on attempts to make gym visits, stacked on social gatherings, stacked on… became too much for me to handle. I started cancelling. I started not showing up at social gatherings. I started neglecting the gym. I started staying at home with a cup of tea, and marathoning Gilmore Girls. I watched four seasons in two weeks. I didn’t leave the house. I didn’t change out of my pyjamas, didn’t talk to my roommates, and didn’t bother making myself any real food.

There wasn’t anything particularly wrong with this pattern. Looking back, this short period in my life was a needed pause, a really important moment for my development as an academic, and a reminder that students actually are human. I had spent so much of my life caught in the loop of productivity that I forgot to allow myself to breathe; I was so set on being well-rounded, that I stopped myself from realizing that I hate the gym, I don’t need to please every single person I meet, and I don’t have to know everything.

More recently, I read Ann Cvetkovich’s book about Depression as public feeling. Cvetkovich talks about how capitalism expects us to work ourselves to the bone, and how society often functions by keeping capitalism running. My own depression is often connected to feelings of guilt and shame at not working hard enough. I am not good enough because I am not feeling constant exhaustion. I am not pushing myself to work harder. I am not learning fast enough. I am not excelling at my job. I am failure because I don’t want to leave the house.

These feelings do not exist in a vacuum. Often they are connected to gender, race, sexuality, ableism. Certain things are not seen as work: cleaning the house for example is taken for granted as outside of capitalism. It does not count as work. Making food is not seen as work. Doing laundry is not work. All of these very domestic activities are usually what women have to invisibly accomplish.

My feelings of loneliness are also connected to capitalist structures: I have not worked hard enough to find a significant other. I am not having enough sex, or trying to have sex in the correct way. I am not working hard enough in maintaining a body that someone else would find sexy. I am also not working hard enough in my non-sexual or non-romantic relationships; I am not trying hard enough to show my love.

This is why Audre Lorde called self-care warfare. This is what Sara Ahmed was pointing to when she wrote about the importance of taking care. When structures are in place that make you feel debilitating loneliness and exhaustion, not doing becomes a radical act. A day off becomes a statement against, a moment of self-care as warfare.

It is often especially difficult to see the radical potential in not-doing, especially for those of us interested in anti-racist, feminist work. My success is often because I benefit from structures as a white woman. I need to be constantly unlearning racism, I need to be working to end these structures, and I need to be listening, always listening to women of colour.

However, systems of oppression are not straightforward and are not hierarchical. Interlocking systems of oppression mean that part of my work has to also be not-working. Part of unlearning and listening means that I need to stop talking and allow others to talk, especially others who are so often left unheard. I also need to listen when others do not want to talk, when others also do not have days off. I need to catch myself when I expect feminists to perform in specific ways for my own benefit, and I also need to catch myself when I expect myself to constantly be working as a feminist; forcing specific people to work for their minority groups, rather than as people in and of themselves is a potential for disaster.

I have been trying to make myself take at least a day each week completely off. I work weekends, teach Mondays, and try to write my thesis somehow in-between. I have just confirmed that one of my coworkers has taken a Saturday shift off my hands, so I will soon have a Saturday all to myself. Somehow, I will try to convince myself I’m allowed to. I’m working on it.

and what do I know?
I know there are (rings) holes in my pockets
empty dreams and too much wine in my stomach
I know the grass burns brighter on the other side
I can drink tea and make my gums bleed
lit the candles on my doorstep
walked backwards in the rain
slipped into a puddle and laughed
I know chocolate can bring back demons
make my heart spin and my head turn
ran and danced and am still living
If I loved once I don’t remember it
dressed up, lipstick and all, to teach
marked a hundred exams all with a smile
because missed commas are like kryptonite
and I lost it.
I know there are words I haven’t heard of
books I haven’t yet read (won’t read)
I know an obscure playwright
lesbian crazy girl
better than I know myself.

they told me to write it down
gave them a blank page and a head nod
this is what I know
this is what I know

The Pretentious Title

Essay-a-week is not for the meek.

Monthly Archives: January 2016

begin.

In Search of a Day Off

refused to stay

a little reminder that metaphors are real

pastel memory