Post-retirement, I have found myself adrift in the sea of self-identity. I was "Christine Wy, Student!" Or "Christine Wy, Archivist!" for many years, and now, having retired from health complications at the age of 37, I look at 42 and try to understand "the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything." And you know. Despite being 42. I can't find it.
I've begun to live in a morass of reflected glory, specifically, via my highly accomplished husband. I revel in the twists and turns he reveals to me about his research and feel so enmeshed in the process that it has begun to feel as if it were me, as well, preparing his research.
And then he goes away.
Then the article is written, the book published, and I forget to read it. The presentation at the conference is a success, and I'm so amped for him, I forget I really wasn't there participating at all. It's so much a part of me now, that if somehow what I "do" comes up, it turns into "Oh I'm disabled, but let me tell you about my husband!"
And it's become soul crushing.
I do not want to be, "Christine Wy, Disabled!" How much does that suck? How unrelatable, how miserable, how small and insignificant? How -pathetic-??
In my brightest moments, I think of myself as "Christine Wy, Health Advocacy Trailblazer!" but it's not something I know how to relate to anyone who doesn't meet me on Facebook, who meets me "on the street," as it were (As if I ever leave the house!).
I feel horrendous guilt that I don't volunteer with health or political organizations, even just online. Truly a magnificent weight is upon my shoulders on this one.
But Facebook. On Facebook I'm a rockstar of health transparency advocacy. I talk about chronic pain, chronic illness, and especially mental health, a subject I've tried to skirt in this blog. Ok, all subjects I've tried to skirt, and admittedly, the reason I didn't talk about it on here is fear.
A lot of people have found my blog since moving to Florida whom I have been very uncomfortable with reading my posts. It really gnawed at me. At one point I was looking for more gainful employment, and more than one interviewer told me, "By the way, your blog is hilarious!"
Oh. Mah. Gawd. Exactly one of my greatest fears when I set out on this "fun" little adventure, future employers. But, I'm a librarian, and librarians find everything, so honestly I wasn't -too- surprised, more like a little miffed that I wasn't obscure enough.
So yeah, health? Icksnay on the bipolarsnay!!
I think I've reached a point where transparency is of utmost importance to me, because here's the thing.... The direct messages.
I get direct messages from people I've met all over the globe who tell me, "I wish I could be brave like you and talk about my mental health!"
You know what? I don't think I'm all that brave. I think I'm more defiant. I feel like mental health stigma is a battle that must be fought, and if it has to be me who leads the charge in my little corner of the Internet, then Viva la Revolucion! "Onward marching broken soldiers!" (You have to sing that.)
But I can't hold onto the "defiant" in me, not in real life. I hold onto my husband, desperately, like a life raft connecting me to my former life, something tumultuously unstable but that I hope will hold me up in the passage from one continent to another.
But where is this new continent? It must be online, because bluntly I don't fit in in Florida, and my number of local friends I can count on only a few fingers whom I'm physically able to hang out with. I was always popular as an adult. Until Florida. So I just don't understand. I'm really not sure why no one here seems to like me, or at best only admires me from afar, ironically via asking my husband about me versus getting my actual phone number.
I'm pausing now to say that I feel like I got off track, but that it felt good getting that out of my system. Talk about "Things that Still Make Me Stabby after Ten Years!" And I mean that, earnestly. It hurts to become unpopular when you're used to being in the soirée's inner circle.
Back on track!
I guess all that's really left is to tie this menagerie of Fresh Back to Blogging spew of nonsense up, so here, let me attempt that....
I propose my own answer to the "ultimate question:" find my defiant.
Somewhere in me is that bad mama jama who wants to break down the walls of silence surrounding mental health. I'm so open and free with anyone and everyone about my life's journey through chronic health conditions, and that's fuckin hella balls to the wall kickass to me, so why isn't that my identity?
"Christine Wy, Bad Mama Jama," here to bust down your stereotypes of what cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs looks like, sounds like, and feels like. Stand back. It's on.
