Category — blogging

Nothing inflames an existential crisis like a well-placed backhanded compliment. I stood at the bar while my drink was being made, and a couple in their mid-fifties were well on their way to tipsy. The woman asked me if I was a bartender at another place downtown. I smiled, shook my head and informed her that I was an accountant.

You don’t look like an accountant. My accountant looks like an accountant…

I thanked her. Who wants to look like an accountant?

The thick logs and dry tinder of various warnings and lectures about managing my image were sitting there, doused in doubt and fear. She tossed a lit match on the pile as casually as she knocked back the last of her drink and dissolved into giggles. That first flash wore off quickly enough, but there was just enough coal left to sustain a slow burn.

Should I try to look more like an accountant? Should I mock the stereotype? Are the people who express concern about the candid nature of my personal writing and tweeting actually right? Is that the cause behind my struggle to communicate a congruent and resonant marketing message for Words and Numbers? Do I appear untrustworthy?

Since the tender age of six, I’ve been warned about the perils of my precocious nature. The reputation lectures would come a decade later. Both are common themes in the constructive criticism I’ve received in my thirty-odd years. When I took over the accounting department, and then as a part of my assimilation when we were acquired by the borg, I found myself continually encouraged to tone down most aspects of my personality. On the record, anyway.

Off the record, I was received with awe and wonder for my versatility. Who the hell is this girl, that trudges into the office fifteen minutes late in flip flops and no makeup, but is stunning in a cocktail dress? How does one manage to hold her own telling lewd jokes on the loading dock and discussing economic conditions over a formal business dinner? How is it possible that the woman who constantly gets her hand smacked for her scathing wit and email grenades is also the source of valuable financial analysis and reliable data? Who is this foul-mouthed creature in a low cut sweater and two inch heels, keeping up with the boys’ club at the bar, at the dinner table, and in the conference room? How does she show up to an afternoon meeting with senior management in flip flops, with an extra large sweet tea in her hand and a pen in her bun and come out with the glow of meaningful praise? How can she write a genuine and eloquent recommendation letter for a former nemesis?

Out of this mixed message, I developed a useful metric for actionable criticism. When it related to anything I did that made me difficult to work with, I made a concerted effort to mitigate those tendencies and situations. I shared my online life with a few trusted work friends, after I password protected any entry relating to my work or my coworkers and some of the posts that were too raw with personal information and emotion for comfort. I lived in constant fear that my twitter feed would come to haunt me professionally.

This was all very much a part of why I was relieved when the borg spit me out, and why I went into business for myself.

When a friend and client warned me about the perils of my openness here and on my personal twitter account last fall, I quickly reminded him that it was exactly those two things that led me to that present moment: en route to an important meeting for a potential project. Our shared client was extremely conservative, and I pointed out my tea length skirt and light makeup in my dismissal of his concern. He chuckled and changed the subject, and an old neurosis found new life.

The writer within abhors any suggestion of oppression or censorship. Stories are for telling. The site name, twitter handle and tagline pay homage to my personal dissonance: the original full name of the blog was cattails: adventures of a verybadcat- a bad pun, a play on my given name, an acknowledgement of the unacceptable parts of myself. It was inspired by the wasbund, who often drew decidedly accurate parallels between his wife and her faithful pack of felines (predilection for napping, lack of concern with approval, moodiness, near impervious to direction or discipline, and the tendency to alternately demand and reject affection, respectively) and by my eternal and undying girl crush on Catherine Conners of Her Bad Mother. The crazy stops here… every fifteen minutes is an expression of my deep desire to overcome emotional dysfunction and the seeming futility of that pursuit.

I’ve trusted you with that conflict in all of my delicious honesty, and both the process and results have propelled me further than I ever would have imagined. The experience is what inspired me to honor two extremely different talents and skillsets: my attempt to make a living by making a life. By bringing my strengths to the promising startups and vibrant small businesses springing up around me.

The accountant within is thinking you can’t eat your principles, and in the name of conservatism, she dilutes the writer’s message. Writing credentials are downplayed on LinkedIn, the business twitter account becomes a container for business tweets. She links from personal accounts to business but never from business to personal accounts. The borg spit her out, and she wrings her hands on the sidewalk, muttering about kool-aid and chewing on the ends of her curls while ruminating endlessly over the message of indoctrination. You’re in a conservative field. You’re young and pretty and tumultuous. You can’t afford to let your work speak for itself.  You must always be beyond reproach.

These two are making me crazy, so I’m asking you: who would you put in charge of marketing?

Like most writers, I avoid reading my old work. Self-consciousness is strewn about like poison ivy, and while I’m impervious to the latter, the former goes systemic at the slightest provocation. My archives give me the hives. So when asked recently for an update on the first few posts the mere thought made me itchy all over. Perhaps if I had not been reading a compelling book on the psychological phenomenon of self-justification, I could have dismissed the request.

I started this blog four and a quarter years ago; happily married, running the accounting department of a locally owned small business, attending college classes, and doing a little freelance bookkeeping. We’d been in the house almost a year. Somewhere in there, I started seeing a therapist for my bee phobia, at the wasbund’s request. My sister and I had just started to develop a friendship. The four of us took vacations together, visited each other regularly, gathered for holidays. Adicus was a little shy of his first birthday, and already a magnificent specimen. Nearly all of the ingredients for the life I’ve always dreamed of were at my disposal, and my struggle at the time was figuring out how to put them together and bake a cake. Those early posts center on my conflicts with gender roles, feminism, and modern marriage.

My heart broke wide open for this girl who had absolutely no clue what lay ahead. Her heart broke for me; she thought she was on the verge of becoming a mother. We wept together and were soothed by dreams that found breath and life in the years between us: starting a business, cherishing sisterhood, keeping the house, writing here faithfully. I love her for her innocence; she cherishes the wisdom I’ve found in the wake of so much loss and change.

The irony is a thick lump in my throat. I ponder whether a marriage can survive a reversal of traditional gender roles after I declare a clear preference for them, and then proceed to document the unraveling of my marriage under a reversal of traditional gender roles.

I’m so fucking good I foreshadow without even meaning to.

I’ll make no pretense of objectivity here- I’m not sure that I’m capable of that. The more success and fulfillment I found in the external world, the more success and fulfillment he lost there. The happier and more confident I became, the more miserable he became. Whether that was the force of circumstance or a symptom of unhealthy attachment is a knot that will probably never come loose.

The failure of our marriage only means that we were not capable of navigating the changes of our life together. It is not a testament to whether either of us are capable of it with someone else, or its possibility in general. I’m not proud of the way I treated him in those hardest moments, nor am I proud of the way I allowed myself to be treated. We let resentment, self-justification and contempt infiltrate our bond, and it died a slow and horrible death.

Being a single woman denies me the luxury of dividing labor and responsibility. My sister and I share my home and the joy and burden of keeping house. Admittedly, her masculine energy is stronger than mine and she attends to most of the typically masculine chores. One of her greatest gifts to me is her acceptance of my lack of interest and fortitude in tools and things with motors. I’m more than satisfied with the small victories to that end: building some of the shelving for my bedroom closet, running the wood burner, painting the living room.

A combination of time, experience and making peace with my mother has loosened my view on gender roles. I’m much more comfortable with myself as a person and a woman than I was then. It took not being a wife to realize that my strong feminine energy is an expression of my personality, not a function of role or status. I will never be the kind of woman that could leave her child with anyone else to work sixty hours a week in a traditional office. I still think it’s hilarious that anyone would doubt my ability to be happy and fulfilled as a full time mother and housewife, though I am much more aware of just what a personal risk it is.

Making such a definitive decision either way no longer seems likely or necessary; the gray area is much more spacious than it once appeared. I do still plan on finishing my degree, and I would also love to bring a child into the world, but I am no longer so concerned with how those two goals will fit together. I’m much more confident in my capability to balance them, and the right man will support me in my efforts.

Division of labor is of little significance compared to the dynamic of a relationship. How often is a division of labor argument really about the balance of power? More often than not, I suspect. Trust, respect, communication and commitment are much more important than who pays the bills and who mows the lawn.

My father has always said that I am looking for someone to walk beside me, not in front of or behind me. I would agree, with the caveat that they do most of the navigating, know when I need a direct order and/or a stiff drink, and are willing to take me to the airport at an ungodly hour. One last catch: he should do these things with the same loving gratitude I feel when I am cooking his dinner or balancing his checkbook.