Still a Chair

When I was in 12th grade, I was tasked with writing a personal statement for college applications in my third-period English class. I wasn't the ham I am today that allows me to make quick, savvy connections between the massive amounts of work I do and what people in power really want to know about me. I was struggling. I didn't feel especially connected to any field at the time, the sports I was forced to join by my mom, or the AVID Program that prepared me for college while I was vehemently set on not doing much with my life in the future. All I wanted to do was make art, play videogames, and direct shitty Youtube videos with my friends. And everybody told me that none of those hobbies would lead toward a successful, well-paying career. Bleh.

So what did I write my first personal statement on? I turned to my friend Jade and began to jokingly compare my life to a flimsy director's chair in the front of the classroom.

Life is like a chair. Sometimes you just get to exist. Other times, people just sit on you, sometimes very fat people that you debate whether or not you'll be able to support for long enough. Sometimes, you're broken and set outside the class for the janitor to pick up and discard.

We attempted to snicker but instead laughed harder and harder. The preposterousness of the idea of us and our classmates resembling different types of chairs was too strong for me and Jade. I remember rushing to finish the draft of my life as a chair by the end of the week. I don't remember if I eventually used this personal statement for my college applications or if I eventually decided to lie about how much the opportunity of being in AVID changed my 17-year-old life later on. Ironically, AVID did end up impacting my life as my first introduction into tutoring and teaching, but I didn't realize that in high school. It's also another story for another time. In fall of 2011, I was simply a chair.

On this irregularly cool summer day, I once again feel similar to a chair. I woke up, ate a bowl of peanut butter Cap'n Crunch, and read a chapter of Christopher Caterine's Leaving Academia while reclining in an oversized grey couch chair I bought from a garage sale for $30 a few summers ago. I'm exhausted. The last month has been spent preparing for an online course I'm teaching, editing our program's first-year writing text, creating newsletters for an internship I'm completing, and writing an article on precarious graduate student work. My first June paycheck was only ~$260, not even half of my monthly rent.

Today, I thought about my oversized chair as I reclined into it. If you recline enough in the chair, you sink into it. I have a couple lounge pillows my friend Lea bought me as birthday gifts in order to help support my poor back. Still, the chair feels especially sunken into today, much like me. I'm doing so many jobs, so many unpaid, that I just feel sunken into. Other positions offer a meager amount of money that isn't enough to support my chronically ill self. But if I stop working, I'll eventually have nothing, which is obviously worse than ~$260. It'd be nice if I could make enough to support myself instead of wearing myself out for poverty wages.

I wonder if this feeling fades with wealth increase. Do the wealthy workers also feel like a chair that the rich and higher-ups in their workplace sick into? How much money is enough for me to feel like being worn out by my work is worth it? Or should I just aim for a different, less stressful field of employment? Sigh. There is no easy answer here.

If you, like me, feel like a chair, I hope things get better for you. May we take a chance to go for a walk and give our chairs and minds a break. May we feel lightweight instead of sunken into at the end of the work week. May we dance in joy even if ever so slightly in pain. May we have the energy to persevere.

While my most recent blog posts have been similar in tone and content, I hope these upcoming breaks for chairdom bring new life and new forms of resistance to my weighed-down spirit. The summer fair season is not far off, and soon I'll be paid for my work to make this summer class great for my students.

#IDisappointMyDad #IDMD #post15 #StillAChair #06232024