A Reason to Live?

I heard on the radio that it's suicide prevention week. I've never been suicidal (other than the Ican'ttakeitearthswallowmeup feeling when really upset) so I have no idea whether the song below would help someone out. But it's my favorite song about suicide... if that's not terribly inappropriate. (Billy Joel's "Second Wind" has a true concept at its heart, but that's some goofy music, yo.)

Whether it's suicide-preventee or not, Alanis Morissette's "Joining You" is just a great song, an original take on the "What the eff is it all for?"

The premise is that a friend has tried to commit suicide, and her mother is freaking and asks the song narrator to talk to the friend. The song is a letter to that friend.

The central message is: If all life consisted of was...

our bodies
our futures
our defenses
our culture
our leaders
our denials
our nametags
our rejections
our outcomes
our indignities
our successes
our emotions
their condemnations
their projections
our paranoias
our incomes
our obsession
our afflictions

...then the singer would kill herself too.

I like that Alanis doesn't spell out what life IS about, that's left for us to ponder/decide; she just says that it's More. More than the feelings that overwhelm us at times, more than the labels people put on us, more than these shells we inhabit.

dear dar(lin') your mom (my friend) left a message on my machine she was frantic
saying you were talking crazy that you wanted to do away with yourself
I guess she thought i'd be a perfect resort because we've had
this inexplicable connection since our youth and yes they're in shock
they are panicked you and your chronic them and their drama
you this embarrassment us in the middle of this delusion
if we were our bodies
if we were our futures
if we were our defenses i'd be joining you
if we were our culture
if we were our leaders
if we were our denials i'd be joining you
I remember vividly a day years ago we were camping you knew more than you thought you should know
you said "I don't want ever to be brainwashed" and you were mindboggling you were intense
you were uncomfortable in your own skin you were thirsty but mostly you were beautiful
if we were our nametags
if we were our rejections
if we were our outcomes i'd be joining you
if we were our indignities
if we were our successes
if we were our emotions i'd be joining you
you and I we're like 4 year olds we want to know why and how come about everything
we want to reveal ourselves at will and speak our minds and never talk small and be intuitive
and question mightily and find god my tortured beacon
we need to find like-minded companions
if we were their condemnations
if we were their projections
if we were our paranoias i'd be joining you
if we were our incomes
if we were our obsession
if we were our afflictions i'd be joining you
we need reflection we need a really good memory feel free to call me a little more often

The Road Taken: Any regrets?

I was chatting with someone awhile ago who was having a Moment of Doubt about some past decisions re. schooling and such. They're in their 30s now, and feeling the pressure to only make The Right Decisions now. Like, if they take a course to help their career path along, it has to be the right course, cause there's no time or money for f***ing up. And this person was thinking about the past ten years, and how much they might have accomplished in the field they have NOW chosen, if they had chosen it back then.

I understand the feeling. I always knew I wanted to teach Cegep (Quebec college) for which you just need an MA, but at the end of my English BA I was no longer living at home, and I wasn't sure how to finance an MA right away (the concept of using student aid was foreign to me--I have huge fears of debt). And I was quite, quite brain-tired.

I was working full-time at a bookstore, and a few years later I was promoted to management. And every time I thought about going back to do my MA, it never felt Quite Right. I'm a strong believer in making sure big decisions feel RIGHT before I do them, so I continued on my path. But I eventually returned to school, this time in political science (rightness!), did a BA and MA, and graduated in 2008. All the while keeping my same job, part-time.

I have never regretted those decisions, but the reality is this: The big hiring window in the Cegep system happened 10 years ago, around the time I accepted my first management promotion. No job materialized at graduation time, so I took a management promotion again, which wasn't much fun (hence my finally leaving the company.)

It could be years, now, before I get a teaching job, if ever. ...Does THAT make me regret the choices I made ten years ago? It almost did.

But.

I am the woman I am today because of those last 10-15 years. Most of my best friends were made at that job. I gained tons of great skills there, most of them applicable to teaching. I amassed a gorgeous collection of books. And I would probably be teaching English Lit, as opposed to having spent 5 awesome years studying the Middle East, gender and sexuality in the Middle East, developing areas, development economics, and political science.

I'm currently reading a very interesting blog by a woman who did get hired as an English Cegep teacher ten years ago--I'm reading the entire thing, chronologically. Right now I'm in 2007, and at the time she was struggling with burnout, frustration at the system, the feeling of no longer being inspired and energized by students, and so forth. All the same feelings I had at my job last year. In fact, some of our experiences are so parallel it's spooky. (Okay I was never inspired by selling, but I mean, re. the aspects of the job that I had used to enjoy.)

If I had become a Cegep teacher ten years ago, would I be burned out on teaching, the way I burned out on retail management? Hard to say, but after ten years I would be struggling with Something. Some kind of tiredness, need for rejuvenation, need for inspiration, etc. Maybe I'd be tired of English and wishing I'd studied some other topic, and not even sure what that was.

And if my friend had gone into their now-chosen-métier ten years ago, they too might be disillusioned with it today, or dislike it in some way, or have fallen into the wrong arm of the industry, and be dreaming they were in Some Other Aspect of the business... such as the very aspect that my friend is presently in.

Regretting the road not taken is like thumbing through People magazine, sighing over the glamorous life that Alternate Universe You is living because of the sweet choices she made when she was 20. Meanwhile Alternate Universe You is thumbing through US magazine regretting all the dumb choices she made at 20, and wishing she was you.

If I get a teaching job in a few years, I'll be 40, which means I might not experience any job boredom/frustration/doubts til I'm 50 or 55. Or maybe I won't have quite that experience, because I'll be starting a career at a later stage of life, with 15 years of experience under my belt from another industry, with 40 years of self-knowledge, and teaching topics I took an interest in later in life. If it happens for me, it might turn out to be a richer experience than I would have had at 25 or 30. Just as I'm positive my friend's many years' of experience have created the perfect soil for their current endeavor.

Unless we can time travel, we really only have two choices: Think negative thoughts about the road not taken, or positive ones. So if I may take a page from Julie's book--I choose to be thankful to, and honor, the road I've chosen in life. I like positive feedback, so I figure my road does too, and she will appreciate the pat on the back, and respond in kind.

Am I being too positive? Are there some career roads that you really can't unregret?

Alanis Morissette says thank-you to the Universe