I went to undergraduate school at a small private liberal arts college in Lewiston, Maine. Lewiston was a once prosperous mill town. I often found the juxtaposition of the wealth on the small school campus beside the working class community quite disparate, especially when students would protest some world event by lying down in the street and blocking townsfolk from getting to work.
There were many juxtapositions in Lewiston. Another was the green rectangular street sign for “Prospect Ave” with a big yellow diamond beneath it that read “Dead End.” this always struck me as hilarious in my youth. I have thought about it from time to time over the years. I used to have a photo of it, but it was one of dozens of photos that were inside of a trunk that was stolen when my house in Arizona was broken into.
I can still picture it in my mind. And as I have grown older, I have begun to think about it differently. Less comedic, more existential metaphor. Signage on the great “highway” of life.
As a creative person, it has taken me several decades to realize my “perfect” job may not already exist, the one that is the right fit for me and me for it. Rather, I have to build one from the ground up. And along the way, I have met with many pitfalls and dead ends.
It has gotten to the point where I have started to feel like these road signs were designed by my own inner critic.
No Outlet
Dead End
I started cycling a couple of years ago, and it is my main outlet for stress relief and nervous system regulation. But sometimes it feels like a literal and figurative obstacle course designed by my inner critic.
I might as well add subheadings like:
Enter as your own risk
Beware
No solicitors
Are you sure you want to go down this road?
Failure and misery this way lie
And here and there a wayward, “hippies use side entrance”
Were these road signs made for me? If so, how do I create ones that counter the negativity vortex from my inner critic and brighten my spirit with an inner cheerleader instead?
While cycling by a “No Outlet” sign this afternoon, I wondered if perhaps my outlet might be writing about my greatest fears. Maybe I could even write a graphic novel about my experience trying to create meaning and purpose in my life.
I imagine I cannot be alone in what I experience, no matter how unique people tellI am in my “Marieke-ness”. I mean, I hope most people do not struggle daily with crippling panic and anxiety. But if I can help reduce my own stress level by writing about it, then it would just be icing on the vegan, gluten free cake if my words have a positive influence on someone else.
My professional path may not be fireworks and fanfire, but it also hasn’t been all dark depression and failure either. On my journey to creating purpose and some kind of career, I have tried on many kinds of jobs to find something that might be the right fit. I managed to get two permanent jobs with a government agency and recently a temp position. I have earned a PhD and learned to speak a foreign language with fluency.
I spent three years volunteering to compose poetry and music with asylum seekers, and it was the most rewarding, meaningful few years of my working life. I didn’t make any money, I thought of it more as a karma career (to be tongue in cheek). But I did feel a deep sense of purpose, of living up to my musical potential, of helping make the world a better, more human place, and the feeling that I was doing what I was meant to be doing.
Since leaving Belgium, I have been trying to find a way to continue composing music with asylum seekers in a similar capacity. I have not succeeded in recreating this kind of project and work. I have learned that online songwriting sessions feel less accessible. I tried songwriting via Zoom with Spanish speaking migrants and people experiencing early memory loss and even some in-person sessions with people with advanced dementia living at an assisted care facility.
If I am sticking with my metaphor, I am still trying to find my songwriting Goldilocks scenario.
I have tried many avenues that have led nowhere. Marieke Maps proverbial dead ends. With each failed application, I have fallen deeper in a place of despair and despondence.
I have had some successes, participating in conferences, publishing an article and a children’s book that is forthcoming. I have managed to return to Belgium several times to offer workshops for children and adults. And even though we didn’t win, the volunteer project I co-created in Brussels was shortlisted for an arts participation award.
Most recently, I finally landed upon a field of research where I might be able to take musical, academic, and professional flight. The field of Community Music originated as a way of taking music beyond the places where only the privileged elite might participate and bringing it to places in society where it is often absent. Many community music projects have taken place in prisons, refugee camps, homeless shelters. It seems like a place where I could belong or at least find temporary refuge on my path.
I regularly put myself in situations that are murky and uncertain, and I keep thinking at some point I will feel more confident and less uncomfortable with the unknown. I worked very hard on my application for the program and for the presentation I gave for my interview. And yet even having been given a place (the British term for being accepted into a program), I continue to spiral into the inner critic zone. I feel less excited and more terrified, like I am drowning in my own think tank of negative thoughts and spiraling fear-induced language.
Impostor
I will fail
What am I doing?
I am spending SO MUCH MONEY on something that might be an enormous mistake
I have no idea what I’m doing?!?!
I know from experience that the beginning often feels this way. It takes small steps to get to the bigger stuff. I am not writing a dissertation tomorrow. I just have to think about the bigger questions I want to explore. I have to navigate a different academic culture and way of doing things. New online platforms and requirements.
Most scary is figuring out how to structure my time so that I can “get the most bang for my buck.”
By the end of my afternoon bike ride, I felt lighter and more hopeful. I tried to focus on the words of support and encouragement from my first meeting with faculty supervisors and less on the fear-based questions of my own capacity and qualifications for this work.
I wouldn’t say I was standing confident on the mountaintop, but at least I felt capable of putting one foot in front of the other along the trail.
life of m 