While I was in grad school my roommate wrote the alumni update column for her college class. I’d help her read through the updates and after sifting through a pile of wedding announcements, births, medical school graduations and law firm partnerships, a mild depression would set in. Our lives seemed so mundane and small in comparison. Why hadn’t either of us graduated with honors from law school, married our college sweetheart, spent 3 weeks in Europe on a honeymoon and returned home to our new house and wonderful job at a predominant law firm? We decided the problem was that no one ever wrote in about small accomplishments (much less their struggles). My roommate never received updates about the excitement of finally owning a mattress after years of sleeping on a lumpy futon, the pride of mastering driving stick on San Francisco hills, or the satisfaction of growing one’s very first crop of Brussels sprouts.
I decided I was going to break the trend and send my alumni update person some small news. Something to the effect of, “I am a proud new owner of a sock drawer. After ten years of stuffing a pillowcase filled with socks onto whatever shelf space I could find, my socks now have a home of their very own.” You may laugh, but in truth I was really excited when I finally did acquire a sock drawer (and the dresser that went with it). I had emerged out of my transient years. I now owned substantial furniture! I had made it!
I never did write my alumni update person (though my grandmother did receive an entertaining letter regarding sock-drawer accomplishments and IKEA furniture construction). But I applaud you for taking things one step further and encouraging people to write about their struggles. It’s good to hear such things once in a while.
And now my story …
Two years after acquiring my sock drawer, I sold it. I said goodbye to New England and moved back to my home state. While I had the luxury of working remotely for a number of months, I soon found myself joining the ranks of the unemployed.
Now, let me put this in context. I’m more of the go-to-college-and-get-a-good-job type rather than the ignore-society’s-expectations-and-hitch-hike-around-the-world adventurer. I also come from a family of level headed folk who save their money, own their homes and, on average, are married and settled down by their mid-twenties. Even the actress in our family has a stable job with benefits. Financial insecurity is frowned upon, or at least that’s how I felt. So moving across the country and leaving my good, stable desk job took a lot of emotional energy. But, it was time to move on to something different, time to get my hands back in the dirt, time to put my obscure agriculture/food/education degree to better use.
A few months into my ‘sabbatical’ or ‘temporary retirement,’ I found myself at a writing workshop (I was supposed to be ‘writing a novel,’ wasn’t I). While waiting for the workshop to commence, I stared out the window and frowned at the brilliant October sky. Added to my worry over job prospects was the numbness left by my grandmother’s recent death. The facilitator called us all to attention, made her introductions and then presented the day’s theme that had come to her on the drive over that morning. The theme of the day—Nothing Is Lacking.
What she meant by this exactly, I’m not sure. As soon as she started the explanation, my mind adamantly disagreed with her. If nothing was lacking, why did I not have a job after countless interviews? Why did all the jobs I was passionate about pursuing barely pay enough for me to make ends meet? If nothing was lacking, why did feeding people and educating people, nourishing bodies and minds, have such little value in our society? Why was it that sitting at a desk paid exponentially more that working with ones hands? If nothing was lacking, why did my body decide it was no longer young and invincible at the exact time I finally had the courage to leave the office and look for more physical employment? If nothing was lacking, why was I so reluctant to give up what I had become accustomed to: health insurance, money set aside for when I am seventy, being able to buy a latte without worrying that I’m spending too much money? If nothing was lacking, why did I lose the woman who taught me how to pick green beans and make jam, the only one who really understood the significance of the sock drawer? No, on that day, it felt like everything was lacking. So I cried.
Had I not been deafened by frustration and grief, maybe I would have heard the facilitator say that there was nothing lacking in the fact that I felt that everything was lacking. And maybe she is right. Maybe my frustration with finding a job helped me sift through what I was willing to compromise and what couldn’t let go. Maybe my lack of work led me to learn about biodynamics, strengthen my canning skills and increase my knowledge of native plants… which, in the end, led me to a job. And maybe sadness is just a step of moving on after the passing of a loved one.
Today I have a wonderful job at the intersection of conservation and agriculture, helping food systems support ecosystems in addition to feeding people. My socks are still stuffed in a pillowcase on a shelf and I won’t be buying a yacht anytime soon, but I get paid to play in the dirt, and on most days that’s enough.
The 'Why I Cried' Project 
