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Reflection Friday: Doing & Getting No Where

[From the unpublished drafts folder, 06.2018.]

Have you ever thought about what you’ve been taught to think? What you’ve been indoctrinated to do?

During the last decade, I’ve been struggling a great deal with “the way things are supposed to be.”

Society’s Pipeline

In high school, we were taught that a college degree would lead to a good job and a comfortable life. Higher education became my albatross. The first degree I completed was an associate degree no one acknowledged. It rolled into a seven year pursuit of a four-year degree that also went largely unacknowledged. Fifteen years later, I completed my Masters in International Affairs while working in the executive office of a global bank. When I began my master’s program, my manager rejected my request for tuition reimbursement, which HR claimed was approved solely by manager’s discretion at my level. My request was denied because my role as her senior executive assistant (she was a global head of litigation at the bank) would not receive any benefit from anything I could learn in a graduate program, so she said. She didn’t need me to have a master’s degree for my role, therefore she was not going to approve tuition reimbursement. Despite being stunned by he reasoning, I managed to say, “No one goes to school to stay in the role they’re in.”

Fast forward four years to a follow-up conversation with another manager about career opportunities. I told her I had hit a wall. I had been with the company for over ten years and worked with senior level executives for over eight years. I had spoken with a few senior executives and managing directors (all division heads with global reach at the bank) about acquiring my M.A. and wanting to transition out of the senior executive assistant role into a project or program management role. Many I saw daily and had some history with – they began to avoid me, despite assuring them my manager was supportive of my search. Our neighbor on the floor, global head of risk and operations, actually had a job posted that was a match for my skills and experience, when I asked him directly about the position, he refused to answer my questions about what he was looking for to fill the role.

After summarizing my lack of progress to my manager, she coolly said, “Your initiative and confidence are admirable, but in this case you’ve over-stepped yourself.” This is a woman I openly admired. I had asked her to mentor me when she hired me. I had been completely honest about my career and life goals. She told me to come to her if I needed help. This follow-up meeting was me asking for help after six months of getting nowhere.

“You may not want to hear this,” she continued, “but if you want a different career, you’re going to have to start over.”

“Start over for what?” Was my incredulous response. “My ten years with this firm don’t mean anything? Or because my advanced education was a waste of money? You’re telling me that my experience and education are worthless?

“No, not quite worthless, just not worth as much as you think.”

“Really? I’ve been working for over twenty years and you’re saying I need to compete with college graduates with no real world experience??

“If you want to change careers. You don’t have the experience in the area you want to transition to.”

“I’m a quick learner and most of my work as a senior executive assistant is project based. I’m not reaching here. I’m seeking opportunities that align with my skillset and interests, which I am more than qualified for.”

“That’s not the point. This firm does not have a corporate structure that supports training people. We hire people who know what they need to do.”

“My learning curve in any new role in this company would be much shorter than anyone coming from outside. No matter who is hired for a role, they are going to have to learn their new job.”

“That may be true, but that’s not how it’s done. I’m not trying to be mean here.”

“Go on.”

I had reached out to one of her legal colleagues before he began with the firm. He was in a newly created hybrid role overseeing government affairs based in Washington DC. I emailed him to introduce myself and asked if he had considered creating a project role in his new organization. If so, I asked to be considered for the role. I mentioned my eight-year tenure in the legal department, ten years with the bank, my good working relationship with the senior executive offices and global legal teams, my flexibility to travel between DC and NYC as needed, and the projects I had been responsible for for the general counsel (his boss) and my managers. He never responded. But he had obviously spoken to my manager. When she introduced us for the first time, he dismissively said, “We’ve already met.” When I mentioned my unacknowledged email query, my manager became scathing.

“I wouldn’t hire you for that role.”

Completely taken aback, I stiffly asked, “Why not?”

“Because you don’t have any experience on the Hill. In a role like, an intern with two to three years’ experience in DC would be more practical. They would already know how to get around.

“So an outside person with two to three years’ work experience beats my internal ten years? A recent college grad trumps my overall experience? Despite my skills and experience being completely transferable?”

Moral of the story: as long as I was okay being led by the nose in circles, life was good from the outside. When I confronted the bias (what amounts to corporate racism), all I could see was the outline of the matrix and the box I was stuck in.

Career mobility was not intended for me. Non-support roles in the executive office were not intended for me. My “superiors” would decide which opportunities I would or would not have access to. It was not for me to impose my career objectives on them.

I was relatively content as a senior executive assistant until I realized management had decided that’s all I would ever be.

What are we rethinking here?

That last conversation was the beginning of the end of my time with that bank. It took place right before my three week year-end vacation. I had closed on my home in Southern Arizona six months prior and planned to spend the holidays there. During my time in Arizona, I rethought my life. I only had an air mattress and a tv in the house but I preferred it to everything I had in New York. That was eye-opening.

Starting over has never scarred me. But starting over to fit someone else’s narrative in a system I no longer wanted to be part of, was not appealing at all.

My practical self outlined a plan to phase myself out of New York City over the course of one to two years. Build up my savings, perhaps rent out the Arizona home to cover those expenses. Suck it up and stick it out to better position myself financially. Unfortunately, my heart and spirit rebelled at the being somewhere I was obviously not respected. It also hurt that someone I so admired had so little care for me that she set me on a course she was intentionally sabotaging. Upon my return in the new year, I handed in my resignation. I felt as if I had liberated myself completely. Perhaps foolishly, but mostly happily.

When your adulation yields nothing, is it really worth it?

Thinking of adulation, men come to mind first. Men who adored being adored but didn’t reciprocate any interest. Yet, children taught me the magical beauty of mutual admiration. The four precious children of family I rented from for six years in New York City. From the first time I knocked on their door to answer the studio vacancy ad, they were all over me and I was beyond smitten. Every time their eyes touched on me in greeting they became screeching jumping beans. Their excitement was palpable. They brought me so much joy, I can’t even articulate it. They jumped, I jumped. They screeched, I screeched. They recalibrated how I view people. If you’re not jumping out your skin to see me, don’t expect me to jump out of mine to see you.

My admiration of my managers, colleagues and company got me nowhere. My availability, interest, eagerness, planning, preparation – none of that was worthy of promotional opportunities. Working long hours, logging in on vacation, being ready and available for whatever were expectations of the role I had and the salary I received.

I received occasional treats and pats on the head. I was the recipient of the occasional “thank you” and “you’re the best” and quite honestly I was paid extremely well to do a job that kept me seated in front of a computer most of the day. But none of that was fulfilling for any amount of time.

I wasn’t growing or advancing. I was on a hamster wheel running in place. For the first six years I thought I was working towards something, yet the reality was I had plateaued my second year. When I finally saw I was running in circles on a hamster wheel inside a box placed in a larger matrix, I decided to step off the wheel, climb out the box and attempt to claw my way out of the matrix.

Stepping off the wheel

One would think that running in circles within a confined space would make one dizzy. However, it’s when one comes to a full stop that confusion sets in. While doing what is supposed to be done – what is expected of us – there is a system in place to support expected actions. The system in place suppresses a mind that wants to think, a consciousness that wants to wake, a heart that wants to love, a soul that wants to spark life and lungs that want to breathe.

There is no support, no system, no back-up for those who resist conforming.

I’ve been flapping in the wind for five years now. Starting over has become a reset and rethink of every area of my life. Everything I thought I ever wanted, any vision I had for my adulthood, all the things I’ve formed beliefs about – all of life has been questioned, reevaluated, re-edited, re-organized and revisited in different ways.

This isn’t a lament. It’s a reflection of the things we chase in life that provide no sustenance, growth or fulfillment. As much as I would love to have a partner and family, I’ve been grateful for my relative mobility due to the absence of such. I have picked up my life and changed course without destabilizing anyone but me. At this stage of my life, I’ve pursued all the things society laid before me, to the point that society itself has become undesirable.

What fulfillment does life offer that isn’t connected to other people? Meaning, fulfillment that isn’t contingent upon someone else’s approval, agreement, admiration, interest, commitment, integrity, support or anything else? Whatever that is, that’s the fulfillment I seek.

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Family Dilemma

The three part Family Matters series I’ve shared has been very powerful for me. Like many, I have struggled painfully and mightily with my relatives through every stage of life. Unlike many, after a while, at each stage I have consistently chosen separation and distance in order to preserve my life. Self-preservation has been both a blessing and curse. The instinct to cut off my arm, my foot, even my heart in order to breathe and live another day with a bit less pain has been my status quo since adolescence. But now, as I approach my middle years, after living the last fifteen years alone without family input or interaction in my daily life, it feels as if I’ve over-preserved myself. I’ve processed out the salt and flavor of life, the meat of existence, the joy of being. I’ve grown stale.

The Tug-of-War of Returning

The aunt who knows me best and had a hand in mothering me during a portion of my teen years, dropped me in my twenties. No rhyme or reason I’m aware of. She simply stopped communicating and interacting with me.

She had a very controlling stranglehold on many people. The hold she had on me was through constant reminders of how she stepped in to help my mom when no one else would. Her idea of being paid back was me owing her my life and being willing to give her whatever she wanted whenever she asked for it. Preferably before she asked for it. When I moved away at the age of thirty, my main intent was to get away from the yoke she kept trying to attach to me. My insight into my aunt’s character was very limited then. Fortunately, I see her much clearer now.

After I moved to New York City, the only time my aunt and I communicated during the first ten years of my self-exile, was surrounding the death of family members.

When my aunt became ill a couple of years ago, she began sporadically reaching out in earnest. Meaning her speech was earnest but her follow-through was not. I listen to her with a very skeptical ear, in an attempt to discern truth and need from hyperbole. Despite not being able to trust her, I do find that I would still like to have a good relationship with her. What I’m coming to terms with is that such is not possible.

My return to Arizona was not meant to be shared with relatives in the state. There was no intention of interacting with people who have no goodwill towards me. However, I am very talkative, my aunt is very nosy… and I’ve never been a deflector or a liar. She knows this. When I don’t want to answer a question, she will keep at me until my guard lowers and I overshare throughout the course of the conversation. She is also good at inserting herself without invitation. Long story short, I eventually shared my intention to move to Tucson and she began planning my life. First, she wanted to visit me in New York City before I leave for good. She wanted to join me in various endeavors when I arrive in my new home and insisted I pick her up and drop her off in Mesa (suburb of Phoenix about 1.5 hour drive away from me) so she can do so. Her suggestions exasperated me. Each time I impatiently cut her off. “I’ve been in New York for twelve years, if you haven’t visited by now, I’m not holding my breath for a visit before my final exit. I’m not driving to Phoenix on a regular to pick you up and drop you off in order to participate in an activity with me. No. No. No. Then… Okay, do you want to spend Christmas with me? In March, I’ll be in Phoenix for an event and will stop by to visit. When do you want to come to New York? I’ll see what I can do.”

Love is very simple. So is relationship. Love embodies the desire to provide and accommodate. That is the essence, the true core, of relationship. My aunt no longer manipulates me from the angle of owing her anything. She targets my loneliness by revealing her own. She tries to identify with me being on my own by claiming to be the same. In addition to being “on her own,” she’s ill, she’s dying, and unemployed. What she doesn’t like mentioning is that she has three children, several grandchildren, a brother, nieces and nephews in the same city. She claims no one’s checking on her or looking out for her. She’s not eating. She can’t go shopping. No one cares. So yeah, I finally gave in and agreed to visit her. I told her two weeks in advance when I would come.

When I called to tell her I was in Phoenix and leaving the event I had attended, she passed the phone to one of her grandsons who was visiting. She called a few minutes later, as I was heading to the highway to get across town to frantically tell me her brother and his wife also “dropped by.” I could hear her anxiety through the phone. I wasn’t prepared for a visit with her, her brother and his wife – far too much ridiculous energy in one space. I told her as much and told her I was fine staying on the highway and returning to Tucson directly. She said her visitors wouldn’t be there long and asked me to come by as I intended. By the time I arrived at her complex, I had to use the restroom, so I called and told her I would bite the bullet and deal with her brother and sister-in-law because I needed a bathroom. She calmly replied, “Can you go to McDonald’s down the street? I’ll send my grandson down to take you there.”

“I just passed McDonald’s. I can get there just fine.” This was my first visit since my grandmother, her mother, died four years prior. Yet, she refused me entry for a time in preference for her brother whom she later shared lives around the corner.

I drove to McDonald’s and ordered food while I was there. Then I drove to another location to journal. I was gone for close to two hours, during which she called three times. My internal debate was should I get back on the road and drive back home to Tucson or should I follow-through on the visit I said I would make? I suspected she had set me up. She had always tried to force me into interacting with her brothers even when I have been direct about not wanting contact. Though that wasn’t the case this time. I had already tried scheduling time with her brother. That seemed to surprise her. Against my better judgement, I completed my journal entry and went to visit my aunt. When I arrived I was surprised to see her son – who had according to him, been living with her for four years. His girlfriend shared his room with him.

The lonely aunt whom no one was checking on, literally had a full house.

My aunt has always made destructive choices. She has never chosen love for the sake of love. Not for her children, not for her husband, not for her mother. Nor for me. I have always given her the benefit of the doubt, but her actions have always been honest expressions of her priorities. She always says I’m like a daughter to her. Yet she did not drop out of contact with her children for ten years.

I view my aunt now as a gateway drug or disease. She chooses everyone and everything I don’t want in my life. Even my willingness to accommodate her for love’s sake is not a good reason to open the door of my life to her when I know she will continue to pull undesirable people and elements in.

Ultimatums

I have nieces of my own whom I have no contact or relationship with. My brothers’ daughters have been withheld from his family since he died eleven years ago. The girls were still sweet then. And I did what I could in all my broken exiled loneliness to maintain a semblance of a relationship with their mother, thereby staying within their world. I reached out to cultivate relationships. I called, I visited, and I sent care-packages. Their mother was a party to my brother’s death. The police refused to investigate so she was never charged. She and I had a couple of conversations about what witnesses shared with me and my family. To my recollection she never denied her part. She didn’t want me connecting with her daughters and when she gave up trying to manipulate me through them, she shut down access altogether.

Several years ago, I connected with one niece on Facebook. I was quite excited to be able to see her and her sisters virtually and perhaps hear about them online. My excitement died a pitifully quick death. They were playing a short game they thought was a long con. Be borderline courteous for a couple of short emails or texts. Hit me up for money. When I refuse, tell me to go kill myself or that I’m not a real auntie because I’m not paying for the privilege. This cycle happens every few years. It’s been three years since the last time.

Last week, my middle niece texted me from an unknown number. Cue borderline courteous brief texts. She said she has a lot of questions and asked to speak to me. I suggested the following evening. When I got on the phone with her, she began with a disclaimer. “I don’t mean to come off as rude, but on the other hand, I am very angry and I just want some answers. Why are you not interested in having a relationship with your deceased brother’s children? Why don’t you ever come around or call? Why didn’t you reach out when your grandfather died? I know you were in Gary, why didn’t you stop by?”

Sometimes, people create their own alternate realities. She’s eighteen now. She was fifteen when she told me I am not her aunt because I don’t “act like” the aunts she acknowledge. For example, her mother’s sister is accessible and available for everything. I reminded her of this exchange. And because I know her mother used to text awful things to me then pass the phone to her so she could add her own awfulness, I offered, “Perhaps your mother had your phone when that text was sent.”

“No that was me. That’s how I felt because you’ve never been around and I don’t understand why you don’t want a relationship with me.”

This is where my heart would’ve broken if it hadn’t been targeted and trampled under-foot for so many years.

I told her, “Your mother would be better able to answer why I haven’t been around. I have never not wanted a relationship with you. However, if you’re asking if I want to work on a relationship with you where you have all these expectations about who and what I should be and how I should perform in a role, then no, I am not interested in that. But if you’re interested in getting to know me and allowing me to get to know you, then yes, absolutely. I would absolutely love to build a relationship with you.

It’s an odd thing when you can be hurt by someone, move to protect yourself from their fiery barbs and still ache because of the pain they’re experiencing. It’s not lost on me that this girl is reaching out with the same hand she’s lashing me with. Even as she’s seeking love and knowledge, she’s attempting to punish and destroy. She wants a connection, yet she keeps burning the bridge we’re meeting on. I see it. I get it. I’m just not here for it.

I’m over all this foolishness in my life.

I’m a self- preservationist who has never had the luxury of sharing my pain with anyone connected to the source of the pain despite having a host of pain points…. Because of my history, I am not interested in coddling, thereby further enabling, an abusive personality. Also because of my own seeking and longing, I will continue to re-open the door the tiniest bit as the simplest invitation I can manage.

Even if I took her at her word and dismissed her methods as learned behavior from having fed on breasts of malice and destruction, then I’m still blurry as to her true intent.

Before the end of the call, she said, “It would have been nice to have had you or someone from my dad’s side of the family at my graduation.”

“It would have been nice to be invited. When was your graduation?”

“It’s this Friday.”

“Yeah, an invitation would’ve been nice. Have you decided on a college?”

“Yes, I leave in August for Atlanta.”

We talked a bit about college. I’m quite happy for her and wish her all the best in all she does. However, it was not lost on me that the timing and the purpose of her call speaks more to her expectation for a financial acknowledgement of her accomplishments than to an interest in getting to know me.

Reconciling Past, Present and Future

Both my aunt and my niece represent the current state of my familial relationships. More importantly, my aunt is solidly entrenched in the past. Everything I have worked to extricate from my life would return to roost in my home and life should she be allowed access to either. I know it. I see it. I don’t want it.

My niece also represents a future hope. She and her sisters could have filled the void of the children I never had and would have joyfully been showered with whatever was showered upon me. She also represents a future destruction as a reminder that the enemy is roaming the earth seeking people to devour. From that perspective, just being able to build and maintain a path to healthy communication would be a blessing to cherish.

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ACAD – Giving Thanks: Ephesians 1

Greeting

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,

To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful[a] in Christ Jesus:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Spiritual Blessings in Christ

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us[b] for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known[c] to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee[d] of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it,[e] to the praise of his glory.

Thanksgiving and Prayer

For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love[ftoward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

Footnotes:

  1. Ephesians 1:1 Some manuscripts saints who are also faithful (omitting in Ephesus)
  2. Ephesians 1:5 Or before him in love, having predestined us
  3. Ephesians 1:9 Or he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known…
  4. Ephesians 1:14 Or down payment
  5. Ephesians 1:14 Or until God redeems his possession
  6. Ephesians 1:15 Some manuscripts omit your love

English Standard Version (ESV)

The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.
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After Midnight (PC, Wk 38)

I really had fun with Photo Challenge, Week 38 – Composition, Black & White! I knew I wanted to use my glittery no-place-like-home slippers which represent a cross between Cinderella and Dorothy to me. I also wanted to throw some autumn into the mix. I went shopping for some decorative pumpkins and found this beautiful one with a silver glitter “S” on it (the S represents multiple identities for me).

When I looked at my final submitted photo, I saw more than fantasy and a season. I saw the fulfillment of promise and the ability to reap a harvest today.

I titled the composition “After Midnight”.

I really love this set-up in color, though!