Deferrals

[A foreword... Ironically, ha ha, I have deferred posting this for a week. The process of writing it, which was made possible mostly because of the support of some good friends, was therapeutic. So much so, that the next day my feelings were so far away from those described here that it felt a bit embarrassing and over-dramatic to publish this. However, I am determined to keep writing and posting, and trying to be honest. So here it is...]

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” Proverbs 13:12.

“The process of doing a PhD and becoming an early career academic operates through a model of delayed gratification. It demands that you work extremely hard (research, teach, network, publish) and implies acceptance into the academic fold, esteem, and a lecturer’s salary as your reward. Leaving the sector meant coming to terms with the reality of a broken social contract which meant none of those things would be forthcoming for me.” Catherine Oakley, “How I left academia: An honest look at the challenges and benefits of leaving UK academia with a Humanities PhD, one year on.”  see article here

After a year of blogger’s block, I am stirring myself to return to writing.  This blog, and writing in general, has been deferred for many reasons in the past year. Some practical ones, like it’s been busy selling and buying houses, overseeing building work, decorating rooms… sometimes writing time has had to make way for the general duties of life: laundry, cleaning, child-related tasks… But, other people have these things in their lives, and still write. The major reason for my silence has been what the writer of Proverbs might have called heart sickness. Others might call it depression.

The root of this is probably my life-long tendency towards deferred gratification. I have always operated on the basis of ‘if I can just get through this, then it will be better’. This, as Catherine Oakley has recently pointed out, is actually the premise that most of our education system is based on, particularly at postgraduate level, and even more specifically, within the academic career trajectory. And when the promised academic career doesn’t happen, you find that you have done all of the deferring, but got none of the gratification. Instead, you get a gaping void where your aspirations had been, and a full-blown identity crisis.

This is not the only area of my life in which I have been deferring joy. It comes naturally to me. As a child, I was the one who would save up sweets in a box under my bed, while my brother devoured his the moment he got them. The knowledge that I had something to enjoy later was almost more gratifying than actually eating them. I deferred my entry to university, not because I had any gap-year plans, but just because deferring seemed like the thing to do. And in a sense, I was proved right. I had such a miserable year before university, which included a broken engagement and working 9-5 for the council, that the first year of my degree was a blissful time. So, this tendency to defer became a defining characteristic of my adult life.

My experience of parenthood is also in danger of going down this route. When you have a new-born baby, it’s easy to think, ‘This will be great… when we finally get some sleep/when we get feeding sorted/when we establish a routine/when we get our evenings back…’ This can become a habit. Over the last four and a half years I have continually found myself waiting for the next stage (particularly when it comes to finding space and time for myself, and for writing). I begin to believe that life will be easier when the kids can walk/talk/don’t need naps/go to nursery; that if I give all of myself at this point to being a mother, wife, household manager, I will eventually earn the right to be anything other than that (a writer, a poet, a voice that reaches beyond the four walls of my home). Now that the eldest child is preparing to start school, I need to face up to the reality that there will always be reasons to defer the things that I want to do for myself. Not all of these are good reasons. And endlessly deferring my own life makes me heart-sick, taking the joy out of everything, including my family. I want this to end. I want to bring joy to my children and husband, and to relish and treasure the joy that they are to me. I need to stop deferring my dreams.

Although this might not sound as inspirational as that last sentence, I need other people to help me do this. If it takes a village to raise a child, it certainly takes community to nurture creativity. If anyone reads this, please talk to me about what I'm writing, ask me for a poem, share your writing with me, tell me what you're reading, let me know where you find joy, or when you're in need of some encouragement.