Maybe I Shouldn't Write for a Living Anymore

"So," I said to Gabe, relatively out of the blue, as I do. "I was thinking about the part in Friends where [Character] decides to quit, and the boss is like, 'What if I gave you a better position?' and [Character] says, 'I want my own office. And an assistant. And an expense account' and the boss is like 'Done!' And then I was thinking about [Friend We Know In Real Life] and how his company wanted him back so much that they told him to name his price, he gave them an outrageous figure, and they actually agreed. I...I've never been that good at my job. I've never been so good that a company would do anything to keep me, so good that I could call the shots. And what's more, I've never cared to BE that good. But shouldn't I WANT to be that good? Shouldn't I want to excel at what I do?"

The conversation went on, and then landed here:

"You seem, in general," Gabe said. "And I don't want this to come out meanly, but you're in general a lot less passionate than you used to be."

"Oh, absolutely," I agreed. "Every single thing I think about, the first reaction I have is 'I'm tired.' The Fire Faery Story, work, dance, working out, church. I'm just tired. I don't wanna do ANYTHING. Ever."

"I'm sorry I keep coming back to this," Gabe said. "But I'm gonna say it again: you're burnt out."

burnout (n): 2a: "exhaustion of physical or emotional strength or motivation usually as a result of prolonged stress or frustration"

And I know he's right. It's not (just) depression; it's burnout.

My natural inclination is to think I'm lazy, not burnt out. "Everyone has responsibilities," I tell myself. "You don't get to pull a millennial and label it 'burnout' and use it as an excuse to do nothing for six months."

But also I know this isn't how being alive is supposed to feel. This isn't how God created me to feel. Something IS wrong. Who I am at my core is passionate, willing and excited to do hard things. But gah, I haven't had the energy to spare for my Core Self in years.

I would chalk this up to baby blues/losing my pink/adapting to being a mom, but I've felt this way since around Covid, whether or not the pandemic actually contributed.

So what did cause this burnout? The thing I keep coming back to is my work, but I don't want that to be the answer, for a lot of reasons. 1) I love the mission of Classical Conversations, 2) I love(d) my team, 3) I loved my role on my team, 4) the company does a phenomenal job of supporting work/life balance and seeing its employees first as people, then as workers. There's no reason my job should have burnt me out, but somewhere along the line, it started feeling more soul-sucking than makes any sense.

Is it that I'm not cut out to do the same thing for that long? I was assistant editor for 4–5 years, then a curriculum developer for 4–5 years. Those don't feel like long enough stretches to burn a person out. Maybe I switched roles at the right time to prevent burnout the first time, and it was simply time to switch again, only I transitioned to stay-at-home mom instead? Maybe this is the transition I need?

Every time there was a new process or metric or idea at work, I was over it before the announcement even concluded. I was tired. I didn't want to figure it out. I didn't want to comply. I wanted to find any cut-able corners, any excuse to defer or delay. That's not the kind of attitude I used to have. It used to be that if I didn't have the energy to comply, I at least had the energy to resist XD The last few years I've felt like my soul has had a flat tire. The project I'd been working on for the last few years—

Ohhhhh.

Oh.

It's that. It's that project.

I LOVE the vision for a work project. It has to do with writing, and y'all know I'm passionate about writing—probably more than anything else. Writing, stories, characters, growth. This project perfectly aligned with my passions, but I wasn't the one who got to call the shots. Frankly, my team and my boss weren't always either. We served the masters of classical education and the company's owner. My role was to contribute and create, but someone else's vision, even if I disagreed with it. Toward the end, that happened more and more. The project drifted farther and farther from what I wanted it to be, and what I had originally made it. Lots of revisions, lots of shoehorning. My square peg vision in a round hole mandate.

That's hard for me.

It's really hard to lease out your passion, to hand the reins to someone else when your desired destinations aren't the same. After a while, it starts to make you hate your passion, because your passion just reminds you of the cage you're in. It's easier to close your eyes than see a view interrupted by bars.

As Gabe said, I've been so stressed for so long that if anything even comes close to brushing against a stressor, I'm over it. Get it away from me. I hate it.

Maybe I'm not cut out to use my passions for hire...at least not the way they have been.

This post was basically supposed to say, "Hey guys, I'm burned out. I don't know why, but let's go on a journey together to get my spark back and if you're feeling the same way, we can encourage each other!"

Instead it's become "Hey guys, I'm burned out. I don't know why—op, maybe I do and maybe I shouldn't write for a living any more?"

I don't necessarily think I'm landing on that for good, but I do want to circle back to the post's original intent: recovery from burn out. I don't know how to do that yet, but I want to think about it (and blog about it), and then document the journey, because visibility helps me stay accountable.

Random initial thoughts that I can hear over the baby screaming at her dad despite doing so well for the first hour of nighttime sleep:

• drinking enough water
• eating protein at every meal
• going outside
• doing tasks intentionally slowly
• finding a rhythm with Bible time
• getting enough sleep
• scheduling coffee dates with friends

Maybe I'll sort recovery ideas into mind/body/heart categories? Maybe I'll try to integrate one new good habit per week?

Leave it to me to turn burnout recovery into a project. Don't worry, I'll work on it.

~Stephanie

Re: I Quit My Job

On January 8, I started a post called "I Quit My Job." I worked on the post once or twice, never finished it, and then I had to send my laptop back because it belonged to the company. For the last five weeks, I've been without a laptop for the first time in about seventeen years.

I didn't consider how difficult that would be for me. I used to be an avid journaler, from childhood until a few years ago. I don't know why I stopped except maybe depression, but blogging replaced the practice. It's not the SAME as journaling, because writing for the public is necessarily different than writing to yourself (or to no one), although I admit even my journaling style is sort of...self-conscious? I write as if someone might read it, not in terms of content, but style.

Anyway, that's sort of a tangent. The point is, for the first time in more than half my life, I found myself without an outlet.

A laptop has been like my right arm for a long, long time. Yeah, the particular one I had for the last nine and a half years (replaced periodically) was company property, but—and maybe I'm not supposed to say this?—I also used it for personal writing in my off time, and watched YouTube on it over lunch. I blogged on it. I checked Facebook on it. I organized photos for our annual Happy New Year cards on it. The images for this blog were stored on it. I bought baby shower and birthday gifts on it. It had all my browser bookmarks. It's how I accessed the documents I needed to do my job. It was my brain.

All the sudden, I had quit the job I would have had for a decade in June, which was at the company through which I'd been schooled since I was ten years old, and had to give up the piece of hardware that stored and helped process the thoughts in my increasingly colander-like mom brain.

Was it a relief to quit? Unbelievably so. I went from doing two jobs—mothering and curriculum developing—poorly and waking up every day feeling like a stack of Copper Lodge Library books was piled on my chest, taking meetings camera off and "in listen only mode, sorry" so my baby could sleep on my chest, rushing through baby-led weaning breakfasts of yogurt with raspberries so I could try to rewrite sections of a writing book I'd been developing for four years to...

Waking up to freedom. Not living under the crushing weight of nap math married to meeting math. Breakfasts that could take as long as they needed to, followed by clean-ups completely devoid of urgency. Walks. Target runs. Brushing my teeth every day.

But also...a weird void. A shapeless silence. Not because of a lack of work, but because of a lack of writing.

I had a lot of feelings about quitting my job, which I had started to process in the "I Quit My Job" draft, but had to abandon. Could I have used Gabe's laptop? Absolutely, and I did, for some things, because I am still working a tiny handful of hours a week as a contractor. But using a different interface without all my bookmarks and documents and trackpad settings felt like trying to write a dissertation in crayon with my left hand. I could do what I HAD to do, but no way was I going to try to blog. So the thoughts sat unprocessed.

In a way, I might be glad? I haven't read over the "I Quit" draft, but I know it's disorganized and filled with lots of guilt and catharsis/validation seeking. I didn't go out at work the way I wanted to. I ran myself into the ground and then resigned knowing there was much that my team needed me to do that I never would. I'm embarrassed and sad.

But now that I've had six weeks to settle, I care less. I've gotten some distance. There's no way I could've continued the way I was. I am so much happier. Elle is getting a much better mother. Classical education will always be there. Zero regrets.

I guess the biggest lesson I've learned so far is how important writing is to me. I've always known that on an intellectual level, but I've been reacquainted with the fact on a gut level. My mind has not been well for last few weeks, and I can feel it unfurling and breathing a sigh of relief with this post. I have so much to say, so much I need to bring out in the light of words and examine.

I've had four blogs since I was fourteen, each unintentionally paired with an era of my life, although they overlapped. The first was called Carpe Diem and it was naive and bubbly and random, exactly what you'd expect from a girl in 2008. The next one began in 2011, I think, and was called Pandora (a darker, sadder, grittier side of myself, but theoretically paired with hope), renamed to Peripeteia ("a sudden reversal of fortune or change in circumstances") when I felt like I had synthesized the light and dark sides of myself. (You'll notice this blog isn't linked. I've set it to "private." We don't talk about the Peripeteia phase now XD) Then there was Reason in the Rhyme, from 2013–2020ish. I guess I'd call that my thoughtful, sort of academic stage. Then we have Becoming Me, from 2019–today.

I'm beginning a new era now, and normally I'd start a new blog. However, this one is different, because it's always been about changing, growing, becoming. Maybe this is my forever blog home.

One thing is for sure: writing is my sanity, and I don't intend to go this long without a dose ever again.

~Stephanie

Three Lessons From the Worst December Ever

It's no secret that this December has been a bad time for the Meters. Possibly the worst ever. Worse than the Christmas I broke up with an emotionally abusive boyfriend for the final time and couldn't get myself to eat for four days.

But don't worry. This is not another Woe is Me post. In fact, it's kind of the opposite. It occurred to me in the shower yesterday that God has shown me three very clear, very key things in the last week.

1) Much less needs to be said than what I've been saying.
A few days ago, along with a terrible sore throat, I lost my voice, and—guys—I talk a LOT. I'm talking (ha) my thoughts, my experiences, active listening, filling silences, narrating life for Elle. If you'd asked me last week if I talk too much, I would have said yeah, probably. But I wouldn't have known how MUCH too much until I lost my voice and noticed every time I wanted to say something and couldn't.

First of all, it was a lot of times. But more interestingly, second of all, being silent didn't make as much of a difference as I expected. It turns out I don't need to say "mhmm" and "yeah" all the time. I can just listen. I don't need to restate in order to show someone I'm tracking with them. I don't need to contribute to every conversation. Honestly, I think I've been wearing myself out with words for no good reason. It would be more peaceful for everyone involved if I cut down my vocalizing by a solid 30%.

(I also discovered that because I'm an external processor, I felt like I couldn't THINK for three days. That made much MORE of a difference than I expected.)

2) If I can survive the last month, I can survive.
In the last three weeks, I was sick, then Elle was sick, then Gabe was sick, then I was sick again. Since Thanksgiving, I think there's been one day that everyone was well. Nights have been painful and sleepless, days have been uncomfortable and exhausting. But guess what.

We're still here. Elle is still alive. I don't think she's accrued any additional trauma.

I thought life was nigh impossible before this storm of illness, but we've done life EVEN THROUGH THE SICKNESS, which means—I hope—that regular life might seem a little bit more doable once the haze of Influenza A clears. Dear God, please let it be so. If I can survive when sick, then I can certainly survive when well.

3) I can have everything I want on paper and still be unhappy.
I know that sounds bad, but it's actually a really good revelation. In the last ten years, God has been incredibly kind to me. I've graduated college, gotten married, bought a car, bought a house, had a baby. Check, check, check, check, check. Some things happened on the timeline I imagined (graduating college), some things took WAY longer than I thought they would (having a baby). Many times I was impatient or wondered if I'd ever have X, and each time I could feel the secret assumption in my head whispering, "Once you have X, you'll never be unhappy again."

Typing that out, I see how insane it is, but I genuinely had that thought when Gabe and I got engaged, and again when I got pregnant. "This is it," I would think. "This is everything I've ever wanted. Anything that happens after this will be bearable because I have this." But each time, I would find the novelty wearing off and depression or disappointment or just regular life tainting my spirit.

In the shower a few days ago, it finally hit me like God walloping me with ton of bricks: "I can have everything I want on paper and still be unhappy." Things will not make me happy. Other people will not make me happy. Nothing on my grand to-do list or wishlist will make me happy forever.

Only God can fill the void in my soul, and even then, I won't always "be happy." That's not what life is about. Life is about the full experience of being alive, and that comes with every flavor of emotion.

In a way, the revelation felt like a relief, like a weight lifted off my shoulders. I can stop trying to satisfy myself. Only God can truly satisfy me. I can just STOP IT. I can just LET IT GO. What freedom! What a relief! I don't need to keep trying to be happy, or scolding myself when I'm not.

For a moment, it felt like I could breathe, which was quite a feat given my stopped up nose and urge to cough with every deep breath.

So yeah. Merry Christmas Eve Eve, or Christmas Adam, or whatever you want to call it.

I am so grateful that God never gives up on me.

~Stephanie

I Love Being a Mom—AND I Don't Recommend Having Kids

My last post, "I Don't Recommend Having Kids," got way more interaction than I was anticipating. I've been shocked and touched and humbled and teary over how many people have commented, messaged me, or texted me. Y'all are such a blessing and you're showing God's love to me in such real ways. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!

I do want to clarify something completely at odds with that post though, because I forget not everyone understands me as well as Gabe:

I love being a mom.

You may want to chuck your phone or laptop across the room and curl your lip and throw up your hands and snap, "Well, then what the heck was that all about?! Are you lying? Are you CRAZY?"

I'm not lying, although I might be crazy.

Having Baby Elle HAS ruined my life, but in the way that becoming a butterfly ruins your life as a caterpillar. Maybe I really liked having a long, wiggly body and munching on leaves, and now that I can fly and suck nectar from flowers, I miss it. My life, defined as "life as a caterpillar," IS ruined. But my life as a butterfly is just beginning.

Yeah, I can't work/eat/shower/work out/poop/etc., and I hate that. I want those things back. But I also have a list in my phone called "Things I Never Want to Forget," and it's full of things like "the way she sticks her tongue out to poke the paci away if she doesn't want it" and "the little poofs of air in my ear as she breathes during the middle-of-the-night upright time" and "when I can feel her tummy glug against mine while she nurses."

I love how she smiles with the tip of her tongue out. I love watching her wake up and see me first thing (cuz we we end up co-sleeping for the last bit of the night). I love when I know exactly what she wants, especially when it's something so weird and random that no one else could have guessed it. I love watching her discover gravity, figure out how to grab things just out of reach, see Gabe come home after work, react to new shadows, understand new words.

I like creating her reality. She believes that her parents are safe and will come for her. She thinks that church is a place of music and friends and Jesus's love. She knows that she can react negatively toward anyone touching her and have her preferences respected. She knows that she is sweet and smart and strong and brave and kind and beautiful. Her bedtime routine is snuggling on the couch with Mama and Daddy and a paci and reading a book, then everybody prays, then we tell her that God made her special and he loves her very much.

I like making baby food. I like finding whole foods and dicing them and putting them in our fancy machine and steaming them and blending them and putting them in little silicon molds to freeze and then moving them to labeled bags. I like planning what spices we'll introduce her to this week. I like laying out her little silicon bowl and spoons and cup. I like watching her figure out how to use an open cup. I like watching her be SO GOOD AT USING A SPOON?!

I like going to the pediatrician (and I pray for parents for whom those visits are a source of stress or sadness). I like our nurse, Bailey, and our doctor, Dr. Janie. I like seeing how much Baby Elle weighs and how tall she is. I like how smiley she is, and how much everyone loves to interact with her. I like seeing my sweet baby notice everything, from Dr. Janie's necklace to the rhino painting on the wall to the crinkly paper on the examination table.

I like repeating words and sign language and watching Elle begin to make connections. She understands milk, all done, loud, diaper change, and let go—and probably even more than we realize.

I like reading books to her. I like rotating her books so that no one gets sick of anything, and some books feel brand-new. I like finding books to go with each season or holiday. I like watching Elle realize that she can turn pages. I like curating Elle's collection of books so that we have diversity and inclusivity and books that respect big feelings and books with good rhyme and meter. I love when books have perfect rhyme and meter and you can read them with an exaggerated cadence.

I love singing to Baby Elle. She has her own theme song/lullaby, which she loves and will calm her down if she's crying. She also loves Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes.

I love using big words around Elle, hoping that she'll have a vocabulary that allows her to express herself well.

I love paying attention to the way Gabe and I interact around Elle, knowing that what we model will be the blueprint her little brain uses for marriage. (Although, talk about PRESSURE.)

I love how happy people get when they see Elle, and how happy she is to see them too, both in person and on work calls.

I love when Elle moves her body BIG, whether she smacks her dangly toys with all her might or slams her heels into the ground while lying down or violently gnarls up the plastic diaper sleeve she has claimed as a toy.

I love picking out the perfect bow to go with her outfits, and I love trying to match or coordinate with her without buying anything new.

I love everything about her tiny body. Her fuzzy, wispy hair. Her chubby, rosy cheeks. Her soft, round belly. Watching her eyelashes get longer. Wondering if her hair is turning blonde. Seeing her eyes get starry with joy.

I love not being lonely or bored anymore, two things that used to plague me.

I love going on walks with Elle. I love how fresh air and nature resets her grumpiness. I love watching her notice leaves or blink when the wind blows.

I love kissing the back of her head every night as Gabe takes her to bed and saying, "Goodnight, I love you."

I love being a mom, but my pre-baby life IS ruined, and all these things would NOT necessarily be worth it to everyone else. Are they worth it to me? Yeah, I wanted kids, 100%. So did Gabe. But if someone doesn't 100% want kids, then the gripes of the "Don't Recommend" post very well might outweigh these good things.

I guess that's the more complete picture of what I meant to say before. I DON'T recommend having kids, not because I regret it or hate it, but because a lot of it SUCKS and I cannot say whether the good will outweigh the suck for you, or for anyone. No one can. Honestly, not even you can, probably.

But you HAVE to be willing to risk the suckiness if you're going to have kids. Kids didn't choose to be born; you chose to have them. If you don't think you can handle your life sucking so that you don't taint the life of an innocent baby, don't do it. I think some of the strongest people are those who know they don't want kids, and therefore don't have them. Good for you.

Do I recommend having kids? No.

Do I love being a mom? Yes.

Clear as mud for you? Same 😂

~Stephanie

I Don't Recommend Having Kids

The mind map of things I want to talk about in this post is insane. It may end up being multiple posts, or writing it out may simplify and unify my thoughts.* We'll see. I'm typing this on my laptop while lying down on the bed next to Baby Elle, because she will not nap alone any more. She used to. But she doesn't any more. The laptop's brightness is turned down as far it'll go before the screen goes black. The screen is at a forty-five degree downward angle and turned away from Elle to keep the light off her face. I'm typing slowly so the sound of the keys doesn't wake her. I keep making typos because I can't see the keyboard that well.

But yeah, let me talk about why I don't necessarily recommend having kids. Boomers are known for all the negative "just wait until" statements regarding babies, and as a reaction, I think millennials have pendulum-swung really far the other direction, mainly highlighting the good parts of having babies.

I'm going to assume that you know I'm not a monster. I'm assuming you know how profoundly grateful I am that God finally answered years of prayer by giving us a baby. I assume you know that I love my baby a mind-blowing amount, and that I would not say I regret having her.

However, the fact that all of that is true and I'm still writing a post thusly titled means that parenthood has been a lot worse than I anticipated. Not just "harder." Worse. Right now, my life is undeniably WORSE than it was pre-baby. Technically speaking, Elle has ruined my life. I say that without anger, and without ascribing malice to my sweet baby. Every single thing about my life has been taken away from me. I can't sleep. I can't eat. I can't work, I can't watch TV. I can't work out. I can't write. I can't hang out with my husband. I can't go to the movies. I can't shower. My clothes don't fit the same. My house isn't clean. I can't crack my knuckles. I can't open the microwave. I can't poop.

Elle is almost seven months old and she gets up anywhere from 5–10 times a night on a good night, to 20+ times on a bad night. She gets put down at 7:30pm, and it's hell until between 5–6am when we give up and cosleep. We've tried putting her down awake, putting her down asleep, nursing her to sleep, separating the bedtime feed from sleep with a diaper change, different volumes of the sound machine, different pajamas/sleep sacks, mittens, different house temperatures, starting with a paci, not starting with a paci, using a paci if she gets fussy, longer wake windows, shorter wake windows, holding her for twenty minutes while she's asleep and then putting her down, letting her cry for a little while, me putting her down, Gabe putting her down, curtains, nightlight, shorter bedtime routine, longer bedtime routine, rocking her to sleep, holding her stationary to sleep, holding her upright to fall asleep, holding her horizontal to fall asleep, more daytime sleep, less daytime sleep. Nothing has made a difference. Sometimes she has good nights (awake 5–10 times), but those have been few and far between for weeks.

Not all babies are like this. Lots of people have easy first babies. In fact, I've heard MOST people's first babies are easy, so if you're expecting, don't freak out.

But here's the thing: you just don't know what you're gonna get. Gabe and I wanted kids so badly, both of us did. I cannot IMAGINE how much worse this would feel if just one of us had been at all on the fence. If you and your partner are debating, or if one of you wants kids and the other doesn't, do not have kids. I don't mean to brag, but Gabe and I have a good marriage. We've spent years changing for each other. We communicate really well. We sacrifice for each other. We're on the same page about parenting philosophies. Gabe is a one-in-a-billion partner. And it still sucks. Because of Elle's sleep chaos, we never get to hang out with each other. I'm not even talking about sexy time; I'm talking about being able to watch a 22-minute episode of a sitcom uninterrupted. If our marriage wasn't ROCK FREAKING SOLID, we would have been CRUSHED under the weight of the suckiness.

I know we have people who would babysit. Several things: Elle won't take a bottle. We're kind of ridiculous about how we want her talked to/treated. She recently has some separation anxiety and will sometimes bloodcurdlingly scream for minutes upon minutes if without us.

I have a post draft called "Biggest Fears" that I started before Elle was born. One of them was that the labor mantra of "you'll meet your baby soon" would have the opposite of its intended effect on me. People say that to encourage you, but even while pregnant, I knew that life with a baby might suck. To Pregnant Stephanie, "you'll get to meet your baby soon" sounded a lot like "you'll get to be sleep deprived, forcibly selfless, never do your own thing again, and stop having people say you're glowing."

And I was right. I was blessed with such an easy pregnancy that postpartum has only been worse. I never got uncomfortable. I loved being pregnant. Having a belly was a vibe. Having a baby is a massive inconvenience.

Do I regret having a baby? No. I love her so much. I'm obsessed with how cute and happy she is. She's a joy. She's the sweetest baby angel.

But am I going to go around telling people they should have kids? HELL NO?! If you don't want this with every fiber of your being, if you aren't willing to have your life ruined, if you don't think your marriage could withstand literal torture, then don't do it. Don't do it. Enjoy your life. Sleep. Eat food while it's hot. Go to the movies. Sit down and stay sitting down. Get a dog.

Is there joy? Of COURSE. But I can't "recommend" having kids because I don't know you intimately enough to make that call.

I think that's more what it boils down to. Having kids is such a personal decision. I've always known that—and been adament that it's rude for anyone to ask someone when they're going to have kids—but now I understand how personal the choice is on a whole 'nother level. It's not just rude to assume you know having children is the right thing for someone else; it's impossible for you to know.

You just need to be sure. I get the biological clock thing, which is a big reason why Gabe and I started trying earlier rather than later, but we were already SURE we wanted kids, eventually.

Cassidy keeps telling me she'll be interested to see how my perspective on this changes. I'll be interested too. I really hope I look back on this stage of motherhood and I can smile knowing that it got better and was so worth it. I hope it gets so much better and feels SO worth it that I can stand the thought of doing it again. I assume I will. And maybe at that point, I WILL recommend having kids. It's definitely a way to find out what you're made of. It's just also a risk for that same reason.

I dunno, man. Life sucks right now. It SUCKS. I know I post the happy stuff to Facebook, and none of it is a lie, there's just a lot Else that goes on too.

So yeah. Don't have kids. Or do. I can't tell you.

~Stephanie

* It did not do that. If anything this post is MORE rambling and less coherent than I anticipated. But that's pretty much in keeping with the theme of this post.