When I first started writing, I would share the ins and outs of our daily life. I mean that was the point of a blog a decade ago. It has been a while since I shared much of our day to day. Of the personal stuff and the hard stuff and the triumphs of life. I had this entire plan to share more last year and then well, Pandemic. I don’t know that, that is an excuse, but at some point I also feel like I lost my drive. My motivation and my why. It is not that we didn’t have things to share, it is that I didn’t know how to share what was on my heart when the whole world seemed at odds with the very center of who I am.
I am a content creator on here, but in my everyday life, I am a teacher, a mom and a scientist. Pandemic life tore me up in so many ways. My family has pretty much made me the black sheep as their politicalization of this pandemic and my actual knowledge, research and experience clashed hard. On every front of my life, I feel attacked and that is a tough place to be. Teachers went from heroes to zeros (I am sure the medical field feels this too). Science is all the sudden a belief and evidence based research means nothing when you have the almighty google and the virtual telephone game happening. The moment someone like me decides to speak up and point out the fallacies we are the enemy. Initially I would engage because I didn’t want people to die. Now, I just let them be, but by doing that it feels like I have failed.
My flame was put out. My family has blocked me or just continues to aggressively engage me in commentary that I no longer care to be a part of. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction (Newton’s 3rd law) and I can’t personally be responsible for other people’s actions no matter how much I love them. However, I have learned at the core what family really is and who I want to be around. The pandemic showed everyone’s true colors, including mine and to be honest, I am a bit of an asshole with a big heart.
I used to think that people just liked me, that I was funny, that I was smart, that I was caring and was a person that people could count on no matter what, to be there, to tell them how it is and to help them solve problems. Maybe that person is in there somewhere, but honestly, I am now ok with not being everyone’s person. I always tell my children and my students that in life you are going to encounter people that are just not your cup of tea and you have to learn to work with them or move on. I used to force that “work with them” portion with myself, now I just move on and I am going to teach my kids to do the same.
Life is too short.
I realize that much of the reason that I would aggressively try to share my knowledge and help people was because I learned the “life is too” short mantra early. We’ve personally lost so many people over the last 15 years and most of them are the key people in my husband’s and my life. His mom, sister, grandparents, aunts, uncles, our miscarriages, my grandma and grandparents and some close friends just piled up and instead of dealing with that trauma and dealing with those losses I shoved that down and moved on. Or so I thought. Apparently, I just tucked that away until this past year where I just would get into arguments with the people that I love dearly about science to try to save their life. I was raised that you lay down your life and fight for who and what you love, but that notion only applies to people that are willing to do the same for you and now I realize who is absolutely willing to do that for me.
Now I just realize that it is not worth it. That it is not my job to save anyone’s life and that just because I have an extensive knowledge base and understanding of complex biological topics doesn’t mean that it is my job to share that knowledge with anyone outside of my classroom. If people outside of my classroom want to know something, they can ask, but otherwise, it is not worth my time. My time, my energy, my passions, they are MINE and giving those away to people who are going to just argue for the sake of hearing themselves attempt to be right is not something that is worth it. If they want the actual education, they can pay for it, do the research, take the tests and then have a respectful educated discussion with me. That might seem pretentious to some, but at this point, I just don’t even care.
I know in my heart that I was not purposefully being malicious or pretentious. That I was not trying to hurt anyone’s feelings and that my intentions were good. It is part of my innate personality to be a helper, to educate and to be there for people and that bit me in my ass while also teaching me some hard lessons that I should have learned a long time ago. Not everyone is meant to be your friend. Family is who you choose and more importantly who CHOOSES YOU. Your opinions are personal and should be kept that way. When people are genuinely willing to see the other side of an opinion or learn the actual facts, they will seek it out privately and respectfully, no need to interject when they are so clearly unable or unwilling to see past their bias.
So that is what has been up. I mean there has been a ton more in our everyday life and that is probably an update for another time.
