It's Okay to Feel Miserable and Grateful at the Same Time

Oh gosh the blog gods are going to smite me...

I'm still in Oak Park and haven't made a post since I got here...we're going on 5 weeks here, people. And I'm torn, because part of me feels horrible, and the other part thinks, "I'm going to blog when I want to! I don't need a deadline..."
But the thing is, co-op only comes every six months, and it only lasts for three. And it's not like nothing is happening, I'm just having difficulties writing about it.

But here I am, finally bringing myself to doing an always-pertinent public internet confession: My feelings about my new life have teetered between misery and gratitude ever since I closed my car door to begin the journey here.

After my first couple of weeks, I had met most of my co-workers and spent a few work days in an office space provided for me by a partnering sustainable community development organization called Seven Generations Ahead. The people working there were generous enough to give me the space, and I appreciated the efforts put forth by so many to bring me there. And at the same time, I had difficulty acknowledging my true feelings about being in an office...

My desk faced a pale blue wall. I sat in a wheelie chair for five hours, glued to a computer screen. My fingers typed words and phrases like "outreach", "touch base", and "I just wanted to check in with you about..." Reading back over my communications felt as if I was reading something written by a totally different person. I was even sending template emails written by someone else. I felt exhausted, and I wasn't even moving! The energy was so different from the open skies and endless fir tree-covered mountains that accompanied me every day during my last co-op in Washington state.

And I was still processing my new living situation. I'm renting a basement in a home stay for international students that is owned and run by a couple of sweet empty-nesters. Of course, after having been at Antioch for a little over a year, my cultural-sensitivity senses were on high alert right from the start. I felt very separate from these people and was too critical of the intended and established roles in the household. Tending to the sneaky soft-core rebel that dwells within me, I certainly was not about to fit anyone's mold.

I didn't know how to write about this for a public audience. My employers would most likely read it, and potentially my host family. I would hate for them to think I was not appreciative of the time, energy, and efforts they had been putting into me being able to be here.

I expressed this struggle with my co-op advisor, Brooke, over lunch a few weeks ago while she was in Chicago to scope out jobs and check in with her advisees.

Brooke listened thoughtfully and summarized: "It sounds like good material for a book."

A book.

Me? Write a book? What is a book anyway? No, only authors write books. I don't know anything about writing. A book...?

So I left our lunch meeting in a dazed limbo. I began to imagine myself in a different medium, from a character's perspective, my experience coming alive through a whisper into their fictional ear. The thought of these uncomfortable situations became a source of creative energy for me, and when I got home, I didn't want to write - I wanted to draw. I wanted to make faces, speak in different voices, write music. All of these talents that I've stifled for so long began to emerge, and it suddenly became easier to express my conflicting feelings of misery and gratitude. It even helped me feel less miserable, and more grateful.

And I mean, what's wrong with being honest and saying that you feel miserable? Everyone can say that they've felt that way at some point in their life. When it comes to expressing the simultaneous feeling of gratitude, people can't buy it. It seems that in our culture of absolutes, it is all too easy for people to not accept mixing two opposite sides of an emotion spectrum. But it must exist within others - one can feel miserable living out the same, mundane routine day after day and still love their job, right?

I any case, I know the feelings exist within me, and I'm no longer worried about sharing it. I do love what helping organize an environmental film festival is assisting - to move towards a more sustainable world by spreading ideas and sparking change within community members. And I'm getting paid, which is great!

So, as I mentioned before, most of my reflections and creativity lately have been channeled to private journalling and sketching. I recently wrote to my good friend and fellow kick-ass Antiochian, Lillian, who is co-oping in Chile, "It's an interesting and challenging exercise, to talk about real shit without sounding really shitty."

Dear Self, thank you for powering through this post, and embracing the conflicting feelings of misery and gratitude.

Panorama of my basement space

My office. And the view from the window (The Lake Theatre is across the street)

My little ukulele playing group that meets every Thursday night

 Inside the Garfield Park Conservatory

From my stroll at the Morton Arboretum

Grow with the Flow

Hello again, this time from Oak Park, Illinois! I'm here for my second three-month co-op experience, working for Green Community Connections (GCC). It's a non-profit organization that promotes sustainability and environmental education in the Oak Park and Forest Park areas, both located just outside of Chicago.

It's been six months since the last time I've written on this blog. The other day I was reading some of my past posts from my last co-op in Washington, and it was a peculiar experience - it seemed as if they were written by a completely different person. Much has changed in the past couple of quarters at Antioch, changing events that have in turn changed me in their process. It's interesting to think about the upcoming weeks' posts on this blog, my tone from the last time definitely being different. We shall see how it goes.

I drove in to the suburb of Chicago Saturday afternoon after six hours of driving by myself - probably my longest drive yet. I started to get sleepy at one point, so I shut my Farewell to Arms audiobook off, turned cold air up, and sang songs to myself. I've never been able to fall asleep sitting in the cold or while singing, so I figured I could definitely count on staying awake if I did both at once.

Anyways, I turned on the radio as I started to hit traffic near the city, and was welcomed by friendly snow flurries. It was starting to get dark when I finally arrived at my place of stay, a home and boardinghouse located a few miles away from my workplace. The couple who lives here, Margaret and Don, have spent years hosting international students who study at the Kaplan International Language School in downtown Chicago. They were willing to let me rent their basement room for an outstanding price, breakfast and dinner included. It's a very cozy place, and will definitely be nice place to have to myself at the end of the day.

That evening Margaret and Don were hosting a dinner for a couple of students who used to live with them while they were studying English at Kaplan and now live in other areas in Chicago. One was from Japan and the other was from Saudi Arabia, and they were both very kind and interesting to talk with. I also got to meet the other students who are currently living here to study English at Kaplan, a young man from South Korea, a young woman from Brazil, and another young woman from Switzerland. We shared conversation and chicken cacciatore at dinner, and continued talking through cleanup and cookies afterwards. It was interesting to hear about the different cultural customs between everyone. It was even more interesting (and perhaps even scary) to discover that the most common knowledge among us all were the topics of electronic applications and American pop culture. At the end of the night, we all played Apples to Apples together in front of a fire.

Sunday I woke up to about a foot of snow outside. Robin, a woman who volunteers for GCC came to pick me up for lunch with her and Sally, the head of GCC and my boss. Robin is an Antioch College alumna and was the liaison between the organization and the college for my job. Lunch was nice and afterwards Robin bought a book by Joanna Macy called Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We're in without Going Crazy. She also very generously bought me a copy to read. I've heard of Joanna Macy and remember her visiting Port Townsend to speak, so I'm looking forward to getting into the book. After we pulled up in front of the house, she let me know that I could come to her whenever I needed to have a presence to listen to me, which I really appreciated.

I was supposed to start my job today, Monday, with meetings and getting myself settled into my work space. But the windchill is 40 below zero, so I'll be doing work from my little cozy basement space. I'll be spending the next few days trying to figure out what my expectations are for myself while I'm here, and what I expect to gain from this experience. Perhaps I'll figure it out along the way. I have difficulty resisting from making rigid standards or set goals. I'm keeping a journal for reflection so hopefully that will help.

Hello, Oak Park, Illinois. Thank you for being gentle with me as I try to grow while letting things flow.