Marissa: An Update (III)
Things that happened over the last year that you might not know if I haven’t talked to you recently:
Austin graduated from law school, graduated from business school, passed the bar, and became an attorney at law at a law firm in downtown Boston, and we are Very Proud. (I am Very Proud. Austin is weirded out by having an assistant.)
I got a job at Harvard Divinity School as a faculty coordinator, which means I run schedules, process financials, do some occasional editing and research. It’s not glamorous or important, and I like that. I’ve liked having a job that I don’t care about very much, because it means that it doesn’t figure into my identity very much, which feels both healthy and unlike anything I’ve ever done before.
I decided not to apply to PhD programs. This decision took me a long time, and I have a hard time explaining it to people who ask (unless those people are currently in PhDs or have recently finished one). I’ve felt much more peaceful and much more lost since deciding this.
I wasn’t depressed. I have an enormous capacity to take blessings for granted, but I haven’t gotten used to this one yet. One of the most interesting, healing parts of 2021 for me was starting to separate my mental illness from my identity. It turns out that when I’m not depressed, I don’t cry that much (!!!). I have energy to paint and draw and write. My feelings don’t get hurt as easily, and I’m OK letting things go. Long story short, if you most of your interactions with me were between 2005 and 2020, I would like to inform you that I am in fact much more chill and fun than you thought.
Hard things happened too. I was unemployed for most of 2021; months into my job all my coworkers quit and I was suddenly doing the job of three and a half people; Austin had to work crazy hours; I was sick every other week—all this aside from the absolute madness that was the year in general. But 2021 was very kind to me. Nothing in my general vicinity is perfect, but so much of it is good.
This takes us to the present day, where I’m ensconced in what I call my sunshine blanket (Austin calls it the banana blanket) on the same couch I wrote my first blog post on. Traditionally, this the part where I set a goal for the blog, and I’m not sure what it should be this year. I’ve started expanding into other writing projects too, and I want to continue to give them my attention. But I still have things I want to do here—I have half written blog posts on the movie Arrival, on repentance, on the difference between rest and relaxation, all of which I’m excited about. My promise, then, is no matter what happens with my other projects, I’ll continue to develop ideas here. I hope you’ll keep showing up too.