Home currently is in the process of what looks like a spring
clean. Apart from it’s not spring, it’s summer. And I am only clearing out
because I need to start packing up. I do still love living in my flat. I am
also leaving my flat in ten days and moving to Scotland. My new job is there,
and this past year has seen quite a chunk of my life begin to transition there
too (PhDs aren’t simple – I got a warning before I did my counselling &
psychotherapy training that it would change things. But nobody really gave me
that warning before starting my PhD). Anyway. I have moved so much that I am quite
immune to the practicalities of packing and moving now. But I am not immune to
the other parts of moving. The parts where you embrace change and face change
and navigate this weird thing of working out how you do endings.
In many ways I am fortunate that I can do this move – that I
have had options, that I have the resources I need, that I have people who have
supported me and gone way above and beyond what they have needed to do to help
make this happen and to help me make decisions. I am fortunate that I have
found a house to move to that I like, and that I have experienced most of the
process of moving universities as very welcoming so far. I am so aware I am
fortunate in all these ways. Academia is a weird thing to move through though –
deciding to leave a secure lectureship in one institution for a fairly insecure
research post in another, is quite a thing. This has been a lesson in trusting
myself to make decisions that feel right. I know and feel it quite profoundly - I’m not immune to the individualising and neoliberal culture that seems to
prioritise this relentless way of working and measuring individual
success. Ways of working that don’t make it comfortable to take risks, *especially*
when you are younger, early career, don’t even have your PhD yet and don’t have
an extensive system of external support to fall back on, if you need to. You
sort of feel you *have* to keep hold of security if you have it – because change
means a lot of newness and who knows if it will settle and who knows if it will
be OK?
As I’ve been sharing my plans with friends and others in
academia it’s been quite hard to gauge responses – generally I think it is not
common to do what I have decided to do. Yet when I tell others outside of
academia they are so excited. Particularly my friends who are creatives or my
friends who work for themselves (thinking to a photoshoot I did earlier this
week). I kind of forget that so many people – so many women – take risks. They
work for themselves even – build small empires themselves, set things up their
own way, occupy spaces in wonderful ways, and they are more than OK! Maybe this
institutionalised way of thinking and working in academia is quite powerful – I
am reminded of that when I occupy spaces outside of it. I get it – I totally
get it, academia is like a work-home for me. I don’t have to really worry that
people won’t get how I work because usually we’re quite a similar bunch. A
tendency to over-work, tendency to doubt yourself, doubt your capacity to know
things, tendency to want to do things to the point of perfection but knowing
that’s a deadly trap because it doesn’t exist. But if you find the good souls, you
also find a solidarity about carving out spaces of resistance and care and love.
Spaces that are not infiltrated by pressure and measures and targets. Spaces that prioritise
relationships - that are not permeated by never celebrating your achievements
because that submission or acceptance or conference paper was just another thing ticked off the long to-do list that never ends
so you automatically move onto the next thing without stopping and thinking. The thing you did becomes smoothened out - part of the fabric of the rest of the messiness of this very fast-moving wheel and you just keep going. Without reflecting. A lot is lost. I do not want to lose this.
This whole change thing - I’ve spent the past few months
working on a few things and working out a few things. Well, in fact I think
this probably is a life-long project. Anyway, I have been working on things.
Making decisions and listening to your instinct generally has a way of getting
you to address things and consider things in ways you don’t need to consider quite
as directly when life looks consistent and predictable. It’s probably a useful
thing. Occupying the spaces that are new and uncertain and staying curious
about that is hard work, but apparently that’s where growth happens. And they
do say growth is a thing that’s important. One of the things I decided to do
yesterday was get a tattoo (yup – and I really like it!). This has actually
prompted me to write this blog. There are lots of reasons for the tattoo, but the
reason I’m writing is to write about the unexpected thing I’m taking from the
tattoo.
The healing process is something that has taken me by
surprise and something that has got me thinking. I hadn’t even considered that this
tattoo might take time, patience and care to heal. In fact, I hadn’t considered
the healing process any more than ‘hmm I am going on holiday in a few weeks and
I’m pretty sure it will be fine by then’, and ‘I’m moving soon, but I’m sure a
few boxes, long drive and some heavy lifting won’t harm me’. This speaks volumes
about how I tend to live my life! I have A Thing happen – in this case, The Thing
is cuts to the skin that need time to heal, and I assume I can go on as normal
and that I won’t have to adapt, never-mind actually pay attention to the part
that is healing. Look at where it is broken, look at where it needs help to
heal, and consider what those parts might need. When I left the tattoo studio,
I left with literally *minimal* instructions about after-care. This isn’t a
critique of the people at the studio – they were genuinely lovely and took
really good care of me. I mean we had a brief chat about after-care and I took away
with me six lines on a small card (pretty clear instructions). However, I do
have a couple of friends who I consider to be much more experienced with tattoo
after-care than I am (I am a total novice afterall). I sent them a quick
message – then a later more panicked message (when I realised washing a fresh
tattoo makes me feel like passing out). Their advice was basically to do what
works for you. (cue the small panic **argh I have no idea what works for me**.
Then cue the *ahhh no, yes you do. You’ve got this*).
I’ve been thinking about this. That everyone has their own
style of healing. And – perhaps this is the more important bit – that it’s
quite a thing to learn to trust yourself and your body to tell you what it
needs. OK, perhaps the other important bit is acting on that once you know. But
I guess half the battle is won once you know you know. I thought I was doing
this as an act of showing myself that I can do the things that scare me, and I
can trust myself about what is right. I didn’t think these things would extend
post the actual half an hour of sitting in the chair and having the tattoo
done. Lessons in time and healing are so important to me this month/this year –
probably I will always move through this. But I kind of love that this tattoo
is becoming that lesson for me.
