I Keep Trying

I have had a LOT of jobs. Pretty regularly I mention one of them to coworkers and they laugh that I have yet another job or life experience to share. It is as if, in their eyes I am a bottomless pool of career experience. I used to be ashamed of that. I have been seeking stability my whole life. As if it was something that I lacked and could find to complete me. This of course contributed to my varied background. At just about the point that I had decided intellectually that I just needed to integrate that part of me and embrace all that it gave me, I had the opportunity to emotionally integrate it. A friend of mine, who had spent her life moving between careers, hobbies, interests, and obsessions died last year, just at the beginning of her middle life.

Karen is pretty impossible to describe. She was just that much. My feelings toward her vacillated between deep intimacy and utter annoyance. There were times when we were chatting every day, and she would call, she actually made phone calls. There were other times that I had to hide all of her social media feeds because she was too much. She was even too much for one social media account, and every hobby she picked up ended up with its own Instagram. For over a decade I loved that friend of mine. I had no idea how much until she passed. I don’t regret that. I think we often find out the depth of our love through loss. I tell Tim, my partner, that I hope I never get to find out how much we love each other, since often that comes with tragedy.

Karen had been a school teacher, a photographer, a tech company owner, a yoga teacher, and was again changing. She was in a master’s program for psychology. She wrote poetry. She invented the internet as we know it (ok, not really, but she had maintained a blog for like 20 years). One night she had randomly sent me a video of her learning to play the harmonium. She just tried everything. And when the shock of her loss hit me I realized that she and I were more alike than I had been ready to admit.

Her parting gift to me was to see myself as someone like her. I am someone who tried everything. Who tries everything. I am not a “failure” at one hundred things. I am not a “dabbler” or a “dilettante.” I am an explorer. I’m on an adventure. I collect experiences. And each of these things I have done and tried have added depth and complexity to who I am. It has taken a lot of really hard work to like myself, but I do. And every experience I’ve had has contributed to this hot mess. Many of my life experiences I did not choose. Things have happened to me that were outside of my control. But so many were within my control, and so many times I took a chance. I learned new things. I met new people. I learned about myself, which things in the world I like and don’t like. What matters to me.

When I tried roller derby I learned that I value my un-concussed brain, and that members of a sports team have a connection that transcends mere love and community. When I was a photographer I learned about my culture and so many other cultures by getting to attend a hundred weddings. I worked for a very well known weight loss company for several years and was a witness to the personal struggles of thousands of people who spent a few minutes each week being vulnerable with me; I learned about what it takes to change and how resistant people can be. If I listed every job, hobby, or volunteer position I have had this would turn into a book. And for me that is the point. I had been allowing myself to see all this as a series of failures. Things I tried that didn’t stick, or that I couldn’t hack. None of those past events have changed. But I have. And I am happier living as someone who tried everything than I was living as someone who had failed at everything.

Pretending to be a big shot in the Hasselblad suite at WPPI

Preforming as a story teller

Having a life changing time at a Siri Joti puja

I am a natural with a tomahawk, apparently

I looked way cooler in derby gear than I really was.

And now I get to choose to try everything without concern for whether or not it sticks. Trying it on is enough for me. I will learn from dipping my toe where my toe belongs and where it doesn’t. It would have been nice to get to learn this while Karen was alive. The outpouring of grief over the loss of her was like nothing I have ever seen. She touched lives in a way I can’t imagine having the energy for. But her life just had meaning regardless of the grief her loss caused. It didn’t need our grief to make it that way. We don’t validate the way she lived. That was for her.

How lucky I am to have known her. And how lucky I am to be the kind of person that feels lucky to be who I am. I went searching around for a word to describe this kind of person. They were all pretty stupid and inaccurate. Polymath was one I have heard before, and multipotentialities sounds made up. Of course all words are made up, so maybe I will make one up, too (I will have to get back you, nothing comes to mind). Because those words describe someone who is good at a lot of things. I think I am good at a lot of things, but I also like to try things I am going to be terrible at. Because it’s fun, because I like having experiences, and because that is just who I am and I like being me.