Fracturing: On the Academy and Identity

Contemplating abstract work, identity chasing, and wondering where it ends...

I must begin with a request for forgiveness. Forgiveness from whom, you may ask?

Well, dear reader— I am asking forgiveness from you.

When I first began this Newsletter, I was not totally aware of the community I would find, or rather, would find me in the process.

I was also unaware that my words would find places to land (self-esteem issues do abound no matter the accomplishments, I can attest).

To my chagrin, the Newsletter continues to grow slowly, despite my neglect, which tells me there is a place for this kind of mess, this kind of messy meditation and musings, no matter how seemingly unimportant they seem to me.

So, I apologize, first for letting my self-esteem get in the way, and second for allowing myself so easily to get pulled from this project.

~~~

As I have been away, I have been walking the halls of a university, once again, as a doctoral student.

Part of my duties, to help pay my tuition, are to continue teaching writing.

Teaching writing along with all the work of being a full-time student, come at a cost, including money.

In addition, working as a baker for a small business that has been noted by The Newyork Times for its bread and pizza adds another level of complication and time.

Both are rewarding in their own ways, but also, both take time and physical energy, which I am running out of.

And still, a large question remains— What does this mean for who I am? Or better yet, what does all of this work mean for my future and where I am meant to give my time?

~~~

Honestly, when I decided to go back to school, I thought my identity would follow. I was now committed to a life path, a potential job, and a way of spending my time. Or so I thought.

I would give myself to the service of my students, my writing, and my ideas, for the rest of my days, and I would have a rich and fulfilling life.

Only if it were so easy.

Unfortunately, despite all of my effort, I am struggling to love what used to seem so easy to love—namely, ideas and words and the people we meet as we communicate them.

I am finding myself torn between two lives…a life of bread and baking and feeding people and a life of the academy, a life of ideas.

Everyone who has worked, or works in, higher ed knows that students and ideas, while pure, are not what the life is all about.

Instead, we must jump the hurtles or prestige, gatekeeping, publications, grades, etc.

It becomes, rather political (sorry, I know what season we are in).

On the other hand, baking is just baking. Sure, I have to scrub sinks. I have to rake ashes out of a 600 degree oven. Sure, I don’t get health insurance. But it is what it is.

And what it is, is feeding people which feed me.

Still, the security, the job track, the mobility that higher ed promises, that the academy is lauded for, intrigues me.

As someone with addiction issues from those with addiction issues, it is a world I never imagined living.

I feel I am standing at the crux of two worlds…one of physical and tangible satisfaction and one of the secret fruit of ideas.

See, I can smell, touch, and taste a crisp wheat crust from the oven.

I cannot touch or sense whether someone has gotten an idea, whether my words have any impact, whether I will find/make a place.

So, here I am. Fractured. Wondering what is next.

~~~

As I navigate the academy, I am finding a home in Trans Studies, the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies department, where I am writing about Trans and Feminist ideals and concepts that intersect with my spirituality and art.

I am chronicling these more academic thoughts, here.

Questions that are of interest and seem worth discussing are how I can, as a thinker and artist, add to the complexities of being a Nonbinary and Trans person in the writing classroom.

How can I contribute to the trans cause in academia?

Or, even more important, how can my academic work in Trans rhetorical studies help other Trans writers and thinkers outside of the academy?

Again, I stand on a border. I have two feet in two different worlds: academic and local community.

Again, I stand fractured.

Where is my place?

~~~

As I navigate the food and beverage world, working to make ends meet as a baker, barista, and pizza maker, I reflect on how difficult such work is on the body, yet how satisfying the tangibility is.

I reflect on this personally, as I log my daily gratitude list each morning, meditating in my journal about the way even this is a kind of addiction.

I am addicted to the smell, to the adrenaline rush, to the cycle of exertion and exhaustion, to the all consuming physical reality that is working in service work.

Still, I am the only Trans person in my kitchen.

I am the only academic.

Yet, I am the only one considering this as an everyday reality for myself.

Future in-laws scoff at such work.

Family scratches their head and can’t make sense of it.

Admittedly, I don’t even know what this means or could mean for me.

Again, I am fractured. Feeding people is feeding me, but at what cost to my body, my health, my financial security?

I am fractured.

~~~

As a compulsively addicted person, I struggle with all or nothing thinking, which often leads to me make very black and white decisions.

I do this or that.

I am this or I am that.

There is no room for any compromise. No grey.

Compartmentalization.

Paradox.

Nuance.

These all stand to break my brain with anxiety.

My body, my brain, my internal ticking structures make me want to choose.

I want to choose.

One or the other.

Am I an academic? Am I a baker? Am I neither?

These are the only options.

However, I recognize the irony.

They are a binary. They want simplicity.

What do I do when my very gender identity, when my background and neurodiversity scream in resistance?

Do they scream.

They are not, cannot be binary.

Neither can I. I am fractured.

~~~

At the end of the day, I know there is no clear answer to my dilemma.

I know I will walk away unsettled and uncomfortable, not happy with either option.

And I know, as an academic, this is built into the systems we have been conditioned to live.

There is nothing natural about what they have made natural.

And neither are we.

We are fractured beings, who must learn to be okay with the breakages and the slips.

Am I?

No.

Can I be?

I am not sure.

All I know is I am, and life is, messy.

All I know is that, because of my spiritual program, I just need to do the next right thing.

More will be revealed.

And what if it isn’t?

I am fractured.