Anniversaries Are Hilarious: 6 Reflections on My First Work Anniversary
Cape Town, South Africa, July 2019
(For the record, it did actually help to bum off to Africa for a month)
Today marks my first anniversary at Oxygen. If you know me, you’ll know this is a big deal. Why? It’s my very first work anniversary ever (it’s ok, I am a naive young millennial with a graduate degree, and it’s fine). Also, I generally tend to get dramatic around anniversaries.
So, while the absolute last place I thought I would be in April of 2020 is on lockdown during a pandemic, here are a few thoughts I’ve managed to vocalize about this arbitrary marker of space and time.
You can have a lot of feelings, and you don’t have to write about all of them.
Even if you’re really good at it. Even if you’ve been lauded since childhood as the next Shakespeare. Even if you haven’t actually. You can, on occasion, shut up.
2. Human connections move quickly.
Some are faster than others, but even the most solid of interpersonal relationships can be volatile. Ten years of friendship can end in ten minutes, and be rekindled another ten years later. You can love and hate and hurt and heal and feel a lifetime of pain in a second of anxiety. Relationships are a series of ropes, some more fraught than others, and the people at either side of the line can pull too hard at any second.
I’m not sure what to make of this yet; as human beings, I believe we seek a sense of comfort and understanding in the constant, and frequently doubting that very constancy can hurt immensely. But my hope is that, as soon as I’m over the load of trust issues that this creates and aggravates, it instills a sense of gratitude in me, an understanding that nothing can be taken for granted. I’m not sure it will, but I really hope it does.
3. Apparently life isn’t all that linear.
I’ve never been particularly competitive towards other people, but as a (really objectively bad) runner, I’ve adopted the idea that the only person who is worth competing against is myself. Athleticism is often linear in the short-term–if you train for a marathon, odds are you’ll become stronger as your program progresses, and upon completion of your race, feel the deep pride of your own improvement.
I recently learned that life is not actually like this. A year ago, I remember thinking that the year before was much better–I was traveling, en route to graduate my masters with honors, and in love, and when I made the comparison, I was suffering from severe work burnout and quite literally making plans to bum off to Africa for a summer to nurse my wounds, as if that would actually fix anything. It’s been another year, and I’m on a lockdown in the midst of a global pandemic. Y=mx+b really doesn’t work here, folks.
Life is bumpy, and sometimes you fall off a step and hit your head on the ground and have to claw your way to the hospital for a concussion, because no one is around to drive you. It does get worse–you can run 26.2 miles and then decide you’ll never move again. But it also gets better. You adapt. You function (albeit lightly). You start over. You do yoga. You start to feel like you’ve made a home. You decide not to move. And then a global pandemic hits and suddenly you’re off the stairs again. Lather, rinse, repeat.
But funnily enough, it does restart. Every single time. And anniversaries are just blips in a series of dumb blogposts.
4. Change takes time.
And pushing for it won’t necessarily speed up the outcome, but it might make you feel better.
5. If you’re the first to point out a problem, you may be ignored.
Even if you suggest a solution. You may also be told you’re difficult. Or blamed for the problem. Especially if you’re a woman. More so if you’re a woman of color. Most of all if the problems you’re pointing out have arisen because your being a woman of color who points out problems is offensive to someone.
And you may be all of the above–difficult, blameworthy, female, and not white. But ultimately, the best anyone can do is follow the right course of action over the easy one, and your personhood does not absolve the behavior of others, or prevent them from doing the right thing.
6. Anniversaries are hilarious.
You blink, and suddenly a year has gone by. Look at you. You made it another year! Good job, pal. No one was expecting that. You were definitely not expecting that. Bravo. Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.
And on that note, let’s barrel through some French fortifications, and start another year.