MeghanIsMe

Whenever I start looking at librarian jobs, I feel so incompetent. I'm also really scared about teaching. I used to think I might even enjoy doing some teaching, when I started my master's in geography, but it's hard to get back to that headspace. And anything that puts me in some kind of leadership position is nigh-terrifying.

I really liked using Oxygen to make XML metadata files for collection management when I did that in school. I wish I could get a job just sitting in front of a computer twiddling metadata all day.

I heard a noise last night, around 11 o' clock, that sounded like two sharp raps on the apartment door. I got out of bed, found clothes, looked through the window, and opened the door. There wasn't anyone there. I'm thinking now that maybe it was something the cat knocked over.

I had medium-high intensity fear for a while after, and it was keeping me from sleeping. I got up again and rechecked the lock on the door. I closed the blinds behind the trans flag I have in front of the window for fear of being targeted because of it. I cuddled with and talked to Miriam for a while, and then tried to concentrate on the feeling of the dog lying against my side.

Eventually I got to sleep, but I'm up super early: even earlier than I'd planned.

Miriam needs to start going to an in-person meeting once a week starting today, so we're both getting up earlier than usual so I can drive her to the campus. She hasn't been regularly working in person since Covid really got going in early 2020 after our move to the Netherlands, so this is taking some getting used to.

It's just a few people, and she'll be masking and coming back after the meetings, so we're hoping it will be safe enough, and she doesn't really have a choice.

Another post made me think about the fact that it's been 6 years since I left my master's program at Syracuse and In many ways I'm still not recovered. Learning about the fundamentally unjust nature of modern production of urban space made me too depressed to be functional. I was a danger to myself. It makes me feel like a failure and a disappointment to lots of people and I still cry thinking about it sometimes.

(But I cried a couple days ago because I saw a commercial for dog food with a dog who couldn't get up some stairs and it made me think of my Akita at the end of his life over 10 years ago and suddenly I was crying into Miriam's lap. So maybe I just cry a lot.)

This affects so many parts of my life still. School is particularly hard for me sometimes because there are some triggers there, but I'm getting through. I think my social anxiety is is tied to Syracuse too. When I was there, I bought a two volume micro-print set of the complete OED at a library book sale. I was so excited to have it! When I left the program, I was too embarrassed and anxious to go back on campus and retrieve it from my little shared office. Going to seminars became harder and harder for me too. I felt like I had nothing to contribute, and beyond that talking about public policy in one class and social justice in an urban context in another was just so fucking depressing.

I had some anxiety and depression before returning to undergrad, and being in undergrad exacerbated that but it was manageable. I had a lot of anxiety that kept me working on school stuff and neglecting a social life, but it was manageable.

The collapse of my mental health at Syracuse pushed the anxiety and depression into overdrive. It's been so bad for so long now. There was a span where I was starting to feel better in general. I was working at RUMC library with Jo Cates and I loved the work and I loved the people and I started feeling competent. There's not a lot of stuff that makes me feel competent, and it's an amazing feeling. I loved being there.

I also started being more social again. I got involved with Erik who was an amazing, supportive boyfriend to me and introduced me to more people. I felt like I had a social future, in which I would get to know more people, feel more and more able to be myself as I started dressing in ways that made me feel pretty and happy.

Then Covid and my move to the Netherlands came along. No more social life. I have not seen a friend in person since early in 2020, more than two years ago. Social anxiety hit me so hard there. I constantly felt like a burden because I didn't speak Dutch, even though 99% of the population in Amsterdam spoke English. I was scared of going to stores because I didn't want to bother people. Sometimes the cashier would say something to me in Dutch and I felt such deep, profound embarrassment. Eventually, between that and Covid, we just started getting all of our groceries delivered.

I've started seeing someone who does EMDR therapy. I think it's effective, but I can't be sure since I've only had three sessions with her. Insurance via Miriam's job covers three sessions at a time, then you have to wait and request new authorization for three more sessions, and so on. But I really like her, and I think she might be able to help me be more like I was before Syracuse. I don't know what else can.

Even though school is hard for me right now (sometimes it's *really hard*, like lying in bed unable to function because I have a deadline and I'm sure my work isn't good enough and I'm going to fail hard), I'm hoping that being a librarian is going to be good for me again. Working at a library was the happiest I have ever been doing work I was paid for, and I'm hanging on to the hope that it will be that again.

I've talked to Miriam about trying to find acceptance. About how if you become disabled (which mental health has some similarity to) it helps to come to terms with yourself as you are and stop comparing yourself to the way you were. I'm so torn by that idea. I don't want to be this way. I want to not be scared and sad about everything anymore. But I'd like to not be scared and sad about myself either.

I don't know if I have much of a point. Something good-intentioned but thoughtless someone said somewhere else about finding happiness through serving other people pulled up a lot of emotions. That being useful "should make you happy". There are situations and people for whom there can be a toxic combination of expectation that comes from those shoulds. Those expectations might feel inescapable without someone(s) there to say "you don't need to shoulder this burden." I'm grateful beyond expressing to Miriam for being that person for me.

I've given my official notice and started telling people around the office: my last day at work is Friday the 20th. I'll have the week of Christmas and into the new year to visit with folks, and then I'm flying to Amsterdam. Hopefully the first week of January, but maybe the second if there's a big price difference. New Years may make things more expensive for a bit?

Danae has not sold her condo yet, but we have a couple months' worth of the HOA dues and mortgage set aside during which I can find some kind of job. And once it sells, we'll assess whether I can do school again. I think I want an MLIS.

People here are asking me how I feel. Mostly, it's anxious. I'm scared of doing things like actually booking a flight for fear I'll get it wrong somehow. But I will get through this.

I found an error in the text I'm transcribing at work from that Civil War exhibit I mentioned. Nathan Bedford Forrest's last name is used with only a single 'r'. However, the misspelling occurs in a quotation of a diary from the period. I don't know whether it's an error by the original transcriber, or if it's actually a correct quotation of an error in the source material (which, by the way, is in Welsh, so even if I could look at it myself I doubt I could make heads or tails of it). This is how we get generational error.

That said, I suspect the original transcriber has already done a bit of correction since everything is nicely capitalized and punctuated to modern English standards.

I've realized that what seems to leave my wrist aching and in pain more than anything else I do on my bike is using the left brake. Because of that, I mostly stick to the right. Today it was wet out and I used both for a little extra surety; thanks to that, my wrist pain this morning is, I think, around a 4 on the 0-10 scale with spikes to 5.

Gmail is still blocked at work. Several patrons have asked about it, to which I can only say "I dunno; it's because of some kind of virus thing. Ask the help desk."

I just found out that nobody here at the library can access Gmail. I suspect there was a network configuration change, but I'm not sure. This is basically the worst possible time that could have happened, given all I'm trying to organize right now.

The last few days' activities have been marvelous, and relatively inexpensive. That's good because I'm feeling a little anxious about money. We've had only my income since early this year. That's enough to get by on, but I just paid property tax, which is not quite a month's worth of pay and it feels like a lot. And her health insurance through NW is ending very soon so I'm going have to deal with the bureaucracy and increased expense of putting her on my insurance.

I seem to be stuck on the monitor power board. I wish I had someone who knows what they're doing to walk me through things. I keep looking at things like Heathkit function generators online, thinking about how accessible and fun it would be to troubleshoot one and get it up to snuff, but I shouldn't be buying things at the moment.

I'm thinking about library school in some shape or form, but I don't feel like I can commit to that right now both because of money, and because Danae (and thus myself) will likely be moving somewhere, sometime. She's job-searching hard, and we don't know where or when we'll end up. The latest potentials are Penn State in Pennsylvania and a university in Toronto, Canada.

Honestly, I'd love to get out of the US right now. It feels like I'm living through a slow-motion governmental collapse. But my dad won't be able to visit me there easily because of complicated document issues, so that would be sad.

I've also realized I just don't know what I want to do, career-wise. What gets me excited? What am I passionate about? I don't know. I've been dealing with some anhedonia due to depression, so it's hard to be excited about much of anything. One of the things that I got most whole-heartedly excited about in the last year or so was reverse-engineering and fixing my VTVM. There isn't really a career to be made out of repairing half-century old equipment. I kind of still want to be an archivist. I loved helping people find things. But I just don't know. I've even talked to Danae about being a homemaker. If we had a child, and she was making enough money, I could do all the household stuff, take care of the kid during the day and while she's at conferences...that feels like it could be pretty fulfilling too. I'm just uncertain and confused about all of it.

Someone came in looking for an article from a journal we have online and I pulled it up for him and showed him how to access journals by title via our website. "God, that was easy," he said. "I should have come here first."

I don't know if it's a feeling shared by any significant percentage of people, but doing that for someone makes me feel so *competent* and *helpful*! I love that feeling.

While adding someone to the library database:

Me: I'll need a home or work address.

Patron: *Provides an address in Dixmoor*

Me: "Oh, I got my car towed there once!"

Patron: "Most people have no idea where it is!"