An Unexpected Side Effect

I was watching the online launch for the new book, "We Can Do Hard Things, hosted by some of my favorite podcasters. " Amanda was asked if having cancer brought on any large changes in her life. She answered that regrettably it hadn't. She had wanted one of the big, course changing revelations like you see in movies but was disappointed not to have received one.

I felt a little jealous. Cancer brought about a radical structural change in my world. Part of me wishes it didn't and that I had held on and kept my job. Part of me misses the order and purpose and identity that my work brought. Despite the way the Governor's office was grinding me down and the bureaucracy was eating at my soul,I knew who I was and I did work that mattered. Despite the fact that I felt exhausted and depleted and unable to meet all the jobs demands, I knew where my worth came from. I was successful. I was making my grandfather proud.

But this part of me , let's call her Executive Emily, really only constitutes a very small part of my overall self. Being rather bossy and loud, she managed to get her way most of the time even though there are several other parts of me that want to dismiss her as merely the internalized expectations of society and capitalism. But of courseThat's too reductive. Executive Emily did some good things for the world and bought me a nice house. However, she also unintentionally but effectively smothered and silenced other parts of me like the part that has strong feelings about human rights and justice and my favorite part, the creative writer. Executive Emily had a way of sucking all the oxygen from the room and leaving me with little time or energy for writing or other activities that brought me joy.

I'm pretty sure that when my therapist met me in 2022, she could see almost immediately that I needed to leave my job because it was suppressing many of my best traits. But what she got me to work on was letting go of my need for control. I was convinced on a conscious and unconscious level that when I had control, , I was safe. I wanted desperately to believe that I could keep bad things from happening to me and those I cared about if I could just keep everything under control. Being the boss definitely fed this need. I worked really hard not to be arrogant or self-centered in my actions, but I felt strong and safe while making decisions and defining policy. As hard as my therapist tried to get me to see that this was only an illusion, it took terminal cancer to get me to understand how fragile and untrustworthy control really is. Cancer took my time, energy , and attention and this taught me that at best, I can borrow control for a moment, but it will be taken away suddenly and hurt like hell if I try to hold on. Once the control shattered, I could see how much it was holding back under the guise of protection.

Executive Emily has been gone now for 10 months and I'm still trying to figure out who I am without her. I do mis her now and then, but ON the day to day level, I find myself lighter and more relaxed without her. I definitely smile a lot more. Within a few weeks, my curiosity peaked around the corner to see if it was safe to come out. I started writing almost daily and lines and images started popping spontaneously into my head like they did back in college and grad school. I still feel a little shaky living out in the open without the shelter of control. The freedom feels amazing, but the vulnerability still unnerves me. I still have some work to do to get to the point where I can feel comfortable saying that I'm a writer when people ask me what I do, but I am getting there. Studies show that people generally have a spike in happiness after a positive change or a drop after a negative event, but then they tend to level off as time goes by. I would argue that there are some positive changes that do raise the baseline. I think leaving my job is one of them I am definitely happier with my self and my life than I was when Executive Emily ruled the roost.