When Being Good is Better than Being Great

My annual evaluation

I had my annual evaluation meeting yesterday, and I did good. I met expectations in all categories, and I was very happy. I was happy because I managed this two years in a row. I was happy because it seemed like I was settling into a new normal that was, in fact, satisfactory.

My former messy life

For anyone who has not been following me, I have bipolar II disorder. I wasn’t diagnosed until 9 years ago at age 48. The problem that brought me to the psychiatrist was a frightening lack of sleep — at least a month at 2 hours of sleep a night. I dragged myself through days yet had racing thoughts, half-finished projects, and broken promises. And a feel like I was about to accomplish something great.

This is what hypomania looks like, at least in me. Overcommitment, sleep disturbances, slight grandiosity — but a brilliant ability to shine in those things I finished. I accomplished three things for each thing I abandoned.

Until I was depressed, and then I barely managed things. I would slump into deep depressions, barely making it to classes to teach.. My course evaluations would go down just as they went up during mania. During the last depression before the big crash, which I experienced near-simultaneously with the high, I would write these long, self-flagellating notes on Facebook, worrying everyone I knew.

After the crash

The inevitable crash sobered me. I spent a week in the behavioral health unit getting stabilized on my meds and walking off the most hideous side effect I’ve ever encountered (see akathisia). This is when I realized that I couldn’t go on as I had, and that I had to stick with the meds and find a new normal.

Learning to live with the new normal, however, was difficult for a person who had lived with effortless energy for a good part of her life. On meds, I didn’t feel the exhilaration of new projects that would buoy me up, so my productivity compared to my manic moments. My self-esteem went down, and I had trouble adjusting to this “new me” who didn’t get kudos for accomplishment.

Good enough

For a while, I didn’t do enough. Because I would get seasonal depression with a certain mix of meds, my fall evaluations would be down, and I didn’t do research because I had fallen out of the habit while my free-wheeling moods had taken over me before my diagnosis. Then, finally, my new department chair marked me as “not meeting expectations” in my annual report.

This shocked me. Other than gym class, I had never been marked unsatisfactory at any point in my career. I had had the fall/spring semester discrepancies, I had quit doing research, but I had never had an unsatisfactory mark in course evals. I panicked.

And then I set some things in place, knowing that I could no longer coast nor could I accomplish the wild amount of work effortlessly as I had in the past. I explained my bipolar disorder to my boss (I am protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act as long as I do the expected amount of work. I explained to him that the course evals might continue to be cyclical but that I would work on concerns. And I informed him that I would do enough work to get satisfactory scores, but would not be going for full professorship.

I have been working toward improving course evaluations and research. Some years have been better than others because I still seem to get seasonal depression. But for the past two years I have done good enough, and that’s the best outcome.

How about you?

What does a job well done look like to you? Feel free to answer in the comments.

The Longest School Year Ever

Why has this been the longest school year?

A full year with COVID. Teaching live and on Zoom simultaneously. Being constrained in teaching because I’m tethered to a camera. Students going on quarantine or isolation. Disinfecting all surfaces in the classroom. No Spring Break. Distance. Just so much distance. Constant stress — Am I the next victim? Is my husband? Will we survive COVID?

What are my summer plans?

Interns and writing. And probably some research setup. Hopefully a writing retreat or two. It’s going to be one of the more relaxing summers I’ve had because I won’t be taking a summer class toward my certificate in disaster mental health. I may not know what to do with all my free time. I have a short story collection to finish (not knowing how many more episodes to write) and I may play more with short story ideas. I have too many novels sitting in my lap to write another one for a while. (Gaia’s Hands, Apocalypse, Reclaiming the Balance, Whose Hearts are Mountains, Prodigies, The Kringle Conspiracy, and Kringle in the Night — I guess that’s 7.) Maybe try to get more published.

What do you think I should do this summer?

I need some ideas — weird or no — of what I should be doing this summer. Please make suggestions in comments!

The Used New Computer

I’m getting a new (to me) computer today. It’s used, it’s a Surface Book 2 like mine is, but it is close to the top-of-the-line for a Book 2 and it cost about $700. I’m going to be happy to have a graphics card (for using Sketchup for making maps of areas in my books. And an i7 processor instead of an i5. And twice the hard drive space. and 16 GB RAM.

This will result in a whole afternoon porting things from one computer to the other, which will kill a lot of time. But it will be worth it.

We’re pretty frugal here, choosing to buy the slightly less recent models rather than the newest. Ok, admittedly, if I could afford a top-of-the-line Book 3 — I still wouldn’t get it. So much of the price of the newest model is that it’s new. I would have had to get a more modest computer (like my current computer at i5, 256 mb ssd drive, no video card.

So this is my new (to me) computer, which I should get a lot of use out of.

Working while Sleeping

This music is supposed to wake me up. The coffee is supposed to wake me up, Why, then, am I not waking up?

Maybe I should type this half-asleep. I can actually type half-asleep, at least for a couple sentences before I wake up and check it. But I can’t transition to the next idea without being awake.

Wouldn’t being able to type while asleep be a good thing? Think about how much work you can get done while asleep! All the times you said “I could do this in my sleep”? What if you could?

Think about being able to type out your dreams while still having them? Ok, maybe writing on a pad with a pen, as I don’t generally sit up while dreaming. I’d love to capture my dreams, though, so maybe sitting up while sleeping would be worth it. A sleep chair and a computer desk?

Maybe this wouldn’t be a good idea. If employers found out you could work in your sleep, they would assume you could answer emails in your sleep, and then you’d never get any rest. I’m salaried, so my 55-hour week could eventually expand to a 140-hour work week. I don’t like that idea.

I think I’ve convinced myself that being productive while asleep isn’t such a good idea. That’s fine — the coffee is finally taking effect.

Living a double life

I’m definitely half-asleep. I started thinking about writing in this blog and then closed my eyes and started planning exam questions in Personal Adjustment (my positive psychology course for spring semester). I wish it was chapters of my work in progress; that would have been much more helpful at this moment.

I have a double-life. I teach, and when I’m not teaching, I write. And they’re two different worlds. I teach psychology and human services classes, and I do research occasionally on things like credit card use and euphemisms in advertising. I have about 90 students in a semester, including the internship students.

So in a few days, my days will be more absorbed in teaching and zoom meetings and the like. I will find time to write, and I might even write better because I have breaks from writing. Ironic, maybe, but that’s how it often works for me.

I look forward to retiring, but that won’t be for at least five years given the health insurance situation. Unless a miracle (the Powerball) happens, in which case I will retire early. So odds are (about a million to one) I will have the double life for a while longer.

Tired

I’m so tired.

I’m in the end stretch, with final exams to be graded Monday and Thursday, and office hours online all week. It’s not going to be too hard, but I still wish it was all over.

I get it. I’m getting older, old enough that I reminisce about Christmas past and old music. Old enough that I would like to do nothing except write till January. (And celebrate Christmas). Old enough that I don’t feel younger than my age anymore. Old enough that I don’t imagine younger men getting crushes on me. I have become a more sedate version of myself. And, after this semester, a more tired one.

I would like my heart to be lighter. This may not be the year, and perhaps what I need is a reprieve from work rather than joy.

Hard at work? Or working too hard?

I think I may be pacing myself too hard. I spend six hours straight on the computer on my days out of class (Tuesday and Thursday) catching up on work. I’m in the zone when I do it, so it’s a good thing, but the tunnel vision makes me disoriented the next morning when I have to go to work and teach those classes. It’s almost like standing up in front of a class with Zoom going is a vacation from those days of extreme focus.

It feels good to accomplish things, though. That’s the reason for the focus — it’s rewarding. It’s getting me moving, accomplishing. It’s what I like to do.

But maybe I should learn to relax more. Maybe I should get back into meditation (although that’s hard with a kitten who likes licking my nostrils.) Something to just shut off my brain …

Every Good Thing Has Its Cost

This morning I read a note in Facebook from an author who spoke of the time-consuming process of promoting her book. She spoke of the responsibilities of social media, the realities of watching her ranking on Amazon.com, the need for self-promotion.

Reading it, I realized that getting published will have its price. Starting with the process to publication — galley proofs, advanced review copies, building one’s social media platform (which I have been doing as evidenced by this blog post). Then, when the book is published, some or most of the responsibility of promotion falls to the reader through social media, book tours, and sales at conferences.

Am I ready for that? I think so. I have known that being published, especially if I get published by a house with some presence, will be life-changing, and that some of that life change will be work. I’m willing to make that sacrifice.

Summer productivity

My school year officially ended at noon yesterday, after I finalized my grades and finished my office hours. Now I’m officially in summer mode.

That means I have some uninterrupted blocks for writing. This doesn’t mean I’ll only be writing this summer. I have a class I’m taking in administration of disaster mental health programs, I have at least twenty interns to supervise, I have research I should do, I have classes to put together for the summer, I have my gardening …

Professors don’t really have the summer off, we just have more freedom to schedule things as we need them.

So, writing. I’m celebrating the end of the semester with a writing retreat in a cabin at Mozingo Lake next week for two nights. I’m hoping the change of scenery will help me get ahead on the rewrite for Apocalypse.

I’m talking this all out loud because the concept of planning out this summer productivity is new to me. Before my bipolar diagnosis, I pushed myself hard at the end of the semester, usually swinging between hypomanic and depressed, then collapsed on the finish line and slept for two weeks. Or longer. A lot of summers went by when I could barely function to do my summer work.

Being able to enjoy productivity on my own terms is a very new concept for me. And I plan to enjoy it.

Beyond the Naivete

When I first started writing, I felt the world needed to hear my story. Now I recognize the many thousands of stories out there and know not all will be heard.

I mistakenly believed my technical skills precluded the need for thorough editing; despite my considerable score on the SAT many, many years ago, I found that I not only needed to edit, but I needed an editor to point out the many places I made errors.

I believed my writing would rise above the other queries out there; however, I like so many others have not found an agent yet.

Optimism or arrogance, I do not know. Naivete? Certainly. I do know what remains is that writing is a lot of hard work with no guarantee of return other than the satisfaction of creating.

I still have my dreams of being published, hopefully with a traditional publisher because I feel ill-equipped for self-promotion. I have my dreams of being read by others and being well-regarded, and I admit that I would love to sign books for readers. But those are dreams, and the reality is that I need to keep trying, keep improving, keep losing my arrogance if I’m to get published.