Processing Work (Ten Years Later)

So I'm part of this "vocation group." Yeah, it sounds kinda self-helpy—and it is in some ways—but it's also awesome. We meet every couple weeks and, mainly, we just sit around and talk about what we want to be when we grow up, or why we don't want to be what we are, or etc. We are all grown-ass adults, but we're also hippies, so we we use a lot of language about "processing" and "wondering."

Us, having a wonderment.

I love this group, because there are always snacks, and because it almost always gets emotional. Like it or not, in America, in 2015, we basically think our vocation is everything. We name and identify ourselves by our jobs or our passions, or by the work we think we are meant to do. I'm pretty sure I'm part of this "millennial" generation thing, too, and people seem to think we have a sense of entitlement, but the truth is that we just don't wanna do stuff ONLY for money, and it was the generations before us that told us or modeled for us that we shouldn't.

Anyway, in this group, we are all very into love and peace and naming and breathing and listening and being thoughtful about stuff, but I'm also the only person in this group that would identify as an artist, probably, and I especially love having non-creatives to bounce some of these stickier questions off of. In fact, some of my fellow processors are straight-up normies, so I get to ask them what normal careers are like. I find myself saying things like, "What if I can't be a good person and a writer?" and "How do people compartmentalize what they do for money (we call this labor) and what they perceive their true work to be (some call this vocation)?" and "Is vocation permanent?"

For me, I've been a storyteller since I could speak and a writer since I could lift a crayon, so if my identity as such isn't permanent, then I sure as hell don't know what is.

But I also asked this question aloud, and it terrified me: "I have this stack of scripts at home." [Right now it's a dozen and counting.] "And they each took me months or years to write. What if no one ever sees them? What does that work MEAN?"

*silence* *some thoughtful murmurs* *someone passes me gluten-free pretzels*

No one had anything to say. And I guess I didn't expect them to. I KNOW what the work means... at least, I know what it means to me. Sort of. But I don't know what it means in the larger context of the world, or if it does mean anything. The crazy part is, even if it doesn't—and I don't even know what I mean by that—but anyway, even if it DOESN'T, I still don't think I could be doing anything else.

And even though I have no money, and no plans to get a "real" job, I still don't know what else I could be doing. Everyone else is drawing Venn diagrams about where the parts of their life intersect and come together to form this magical thing called vocation, but my life feels like one enormous circle and it all just says WRITE WORDS ON PAPER UNTIL YOU DIE, TRISH.

Right, okay. Okay. Here's a poem on sort of the same theme I wrote, almost to the week, four years back. Hope you like it. Let's hold hands next time we see each other.

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Ten Years Later (October 2011)

I am not better

than I was in high school. I know more

about the things that do not matter. That is all.

I am looser, I guess, my prismed pieces

shaken and tenuous now, like teeth

in a broken jaw. But I suspect that isn’t better.

And I try not to eat meat

anymore, but sometimes

I do, I eat chicken, and I think about all

the deaths we choose so we can keep going –

the mountains sacrificed to glaciers, the photographs

that must be burned, and even

moments we deliver stillborn.

Silent.

Their tiny eyes shut.

At least in high school I screamed when I should –