She never did take a bottle. So I nursed during my lunch break, and then again as soon as I came home, and somehow she kept on growing and growing and eventually ate solids. But those first weeks working full time were harrowing for our little family.
They were at my first social work job, too. I liked some of the doctors and nurse practitioners and nurses, but other people terrified me. Like the BFFs who ruled medical records and spoke rapid slangy Spanish to each other peppered with explosive laughs (over jokes I never understood) and turned their steel trap-style minds to any problem they felt inclined to address. It reminded me a little of my one and only summer waitressing. I was timid and usually confused; I'd go back into the kitchen and repeat a question four times before someone heard me and made fun of me and then sent me away empty handed. I'd wander back to my table, demoralized. Um, I guess we're all out of salsa, sorry. I was never quite sure who to ask when I needed help, nor how to ask for it. I had no bluster to speak of. I could barely make eye contact with anyone on the crazy wild kitchen staff. I wished then that there was a way to do my job and disappear simultaneously.
The clinic was full of gutsy funny smart people who knew how to do everything. I was a hesitant, slow-on-my-feet, earnest 28-year-old with no experience, a newborn, and busted Spanish language skills. I felt so white and prissy and bumbling. I didn't have an office then; I floated between rooms. The front desk person in dental was supposed to check in the patients who were there to see me. Sometimes she didn't tell me when someone was waiting. I was so intimidated; I never confronted her. I'm pretty sure she liked it that way.
But over time, the staff at SouthEast accepted me. I began to like wandering into medical records, watching Confy and Enerys tease and laugh in the endless aisles of actual paper files. Confy had every single record number memorized. Eventually people were willing to work with me; they trusted both my good intentions and capabilities. And I loved the patients. I had a million ideas for them and for the clinic, a scant handful of which actually came to fruition.
Then we moved, for Mike's new job. I cried.
And now, unexpectedly, I'm back at SouthEast. The reason we're here is Mike's cancer. That almost impossible-to-accept reality colors everything we do in Lancaster with a strange, uncomfortable light. But even so. I am profoundly glad to be back.
I was hired by a big mental health agency with whom SouthEast now has a contract to provide integrated behavioral health services to patients on site. On my first day, I set up at a desk in the provider's office, tackling technical challenges while I waited for a patient to show up on my schedule. One by one, nurses and doctors and front desk staff and even Enerys came by and greeted me with enormous smiles and hugs. She told me Confy had just retired.
What?? No Confy?
Oh my goodness. It was delightful. We asked about each other's kids and jobs. I exclaimed over how fabulous everyone looked. They really did. Just gorgeous. My jaw began to hurt from smiling.
Every once in awhile I'd stride into the nurses's station and introduce myself to the new (i.e. hired at some point over the past eight years) providers and nurses, asking if anyone had any People with Problems to send my way.
Eventually I snagged two. Success.
The next day I was at a different site, a beautiful space built after I left, where more happy reunions awaited. I got to meet with another couple of patients, but still had a lot of down time. I decided to tackle an online training I needed to check off my list.
While I did it, I listened to an interview with Glennon Doyle Melton. She said she had recently trained herself to refrain from asking for advice from 38 friends every time she had to make a decision. She said that now she just makes decisions. Her new hurdle? Learning to refrain from explaining herself.
That one caught my attention. She said women are always feeling compelled to explain their decisions.
Oh yes. She called it. Soy yo: la mujer who explains.
It's as if we feel the need to justify our very presence, our particularity. Oh, this? I had to wear this. I'm backed up on laundry. Oh, my kid's school? See, we debated public vs. private endlessly and I really thought hard about it and though I do support public school I knew my kid was struggling...and money? Oh yes, I know, it's expensive and we can't really afford it but we applied for financial aid. And probably we won't stay there anyway. And I can understand how you feel about it, too.
I explain myself to myself. Meagan, it does seem like a bit much to have Beatrice in school full time when you don't need it every day. I know, Meagan, but I was so worn down by the summer and really needed a little time to deal. And what if Mike gets really sick again soon? That's hard for Bea. And he has to go back and forth to New York so often. So it really is okay that I'm not working and not scrambling to take care of Mike for a few hours while she's at school.
Why don't I just say: she's fine. It's fine to take some time for myself.
Probably because taking time for oneself isn't really perceived as fine. As women especially, we're supposed to lean in and take care and maximize and multi-task and account for our activities every waking moment. We're to justify every bite we eat, every time we volunteer or don't volunteer at our kids' school, every job we take or don't take, every two minutes spent meditating or flossing or frosting a birthday cake (post the evidence online, further justification) - basically every choice we make.
So it's hard to do the work of living one's life: to assert's one acceptability and lovability through making decisions and showing up and proceeding. But when we do, I think that helps others do the same.
In the middle of that first marvelous series of happy reunions at SouthEast, a woman walked past my desk who looked vaguely familiar. I moved towards her, smiling. She smiled back. Hi! I said, meeting her bright eyes. Meagan! she said. I gave her a big hug. Then we started chatting and I realized I had met her for the first time briefly in the hall of the mental health agency that I work for the previous week. She sees patients for therapy at the clinic part-time.
It was a new work acquaintance, the sort that normally doesn't merit a huge goofy smile and hug in greeting. But it worked out just fine. She was so warm; we sat down and had a good collaborative talk about a client.
It made me think: what if I greeted everyone that way, with genuine delight? What if we approached every meeting as a happy, unexpected reunion?
What if I walked into every new space the way I walked back into my old clinic, with the simple confidence that it was good to be there? That I had something worthwhile to give, and to receive?
I didn't explain away my exuberant hug to my new colleague. In a rare moment, warmed through by so many reignited connections, I didn't feel the need to. The majority of the people I met at the new clinic were strangers to me, but I walked into each encounter with neither hesitation nor fear.
To give others the gift of your face, your open gaze, you have to assume the space you occupy. You have to first know that your presence is good; then you can give it away.
Maybe it's just age, or experience, or the fact that I have a positive history at SouthEast. But I think it's something more. Because wow wow wow did I feel grateful for the change that eleven years has wrought in me. Feeling loved and valued has emboldened me to take up my role and my choices - to live inside my skin - more fully, more peacefully, and with fewer explanations. So that I can love and value and embolden in turn.
Please believe me, dear readers, when I tell you this true thing: it is very, very good that you're here.
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