{"id":561,"date":"2023-10-24T23:07:41","date_gmt":"2023-10-25T06:07:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/success\/?p=561"},"modified":"2023-10-24T23:07:41","modified_gmt":"2023-10-25T06:07:41","slug":"belonging-in-absence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/success\/2023\/10\/24\/belonging-in-absence\/","title":{"rendered":"Belonging in Absence"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>by <a href=\"mailto:sarah.norek@oregonstate.edu?subject=The%20Success%20Kitchen%20-%20Belonging%20in%20Absence\">Sarah Norek<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This past summer, life happened for me. As in, this past summer, an unexpected life event came along and completely derailed what I\u2019d imagined my summer \u2013 at work and outside of it \u2013 would be. It involved family, and medical stuff, and a lot of not knowing, and time. July was a particularly long-feeling month with a lot of being in the hospital with a family member.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Before the event, I had such grand plans for summer work time! There was going to be meaningful collaboration on a project, momentum and gains on another project, some thinking-ahead to a couple different projects, etc. I had a main list, and a couple secondary lists, and things were going to be crossed. <em>Off<\/em>. Stuff was going to HAPPEN. When life happened for me, it was a Sunday. By Monday, my old summer structure and plans were obsolete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As I write this in fall, with two-ish months between then and now, things aren\u2019t completely back to where they were, but they\u2019re in a better place. Lately I\u2019ve been reflecting on the part belonging and community played in my navigation of everything outside of work that unfolded and my absence at work because of it. Being in a less activated head-space, I\u2019ve been able to name some of the choices I made that allowed for my presence elsewhere in July, and to appreciate more fully what was offered by my community:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Choices I made:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><em>I said no to things\/dropped things off my summer work list<\/em> \u2013 summer is never long enough to do all the things anyway, but I also leaned into summer no longer being what I had imagined, and that being okay. Commitments were adjusted. Projects were dropped or moved back. I created priorities based on bandwidth and needs.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>I asked for help &amp; accepted it when offered<\/em> \u2013 asking for help is a skill we talk with students a lot about developing, and I fully admit that I\u2019m still in my help-asking journey. It\u2019s hard. I don\u2019t want to add to anyone\u2019s plate. But it\u2019s also their choice to say yes or no, and it was my choice to accept it (another hard thing, not wanting to add to folks\u2019 plates).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>I let go of what I thought I needed to do to be a good employee <\/em>\u2013 I have a lot of self-judgement around what I\u2019m doing and what I\u2019m not doing and what that means for me and how my colleagues perceive me. Am I unique in this? Nope. But the shape and feel of my insecurities are uniquely mine, and it was hard work to let them go, and imperfect too. Removing that level of expectation allowed me to be where I needed to be completely, and only I could do it.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>I let myself be where I needed to be<\/em> \u2013 during the work day, that was often at the hospital, but also it was sometimes at work for a break from the hospital, or working while there to give my brain something else to focus on. I didn\u2019t give myself blocks to fill necessarily, I just gave myself places to be and ways to be there and then stepped in as needed \u2013 for me and for work and for the people I was supporting outside of work.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>I accepted summer having kind of blown up<\/em> \u2013 I got to practice what I try to always acknowledge in workshops with folks, which is that life happens sometimes, and what we thought we\u2019d do can\u2019t happen. And that can be really hard, and it\u2019s okay. Stay kind with yourself. Give yourself some grace. And recognize that you\u2019re still doing a lot of hard work, even if it\u2019s not exactly the work you expected it to be.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Things folks offered:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Hugs \u2013 I\u2019m not always the huggiest person, and hugs aren\u2019t everyone\u2019s thing, and relationships are different. But hugs were grounding and reminded me I wasn\u2019t swirling around in everything all on my own. Thanks folks.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Permission to drop things\/not be at things \u2013 sometimes permission is actually needed, and sometimes it just means a lot to hear from someone else that it\u2019s okay to not be at a place or show up for a thing. Thanks for saying it aloud.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Coverage \u2013 we already had summer event coverage plans in place, but when I couldn\u2019t show up or needed to be at an appointment, and I reached out, folk stepped in, the community supported me, and I will be endlessly grateful for this. Thank you again.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Texts and memes and chats \u2013 ways to signal a person isn\u2019t alone. A quick hello, a ping from the world beyond my own, which felt very small and stressful, meant so much. Thanks for those, too.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Life happening can happen in a lot of different ways, in a lot of different forms. Our teams may be very different, our approaches may be very different. My brilliant colleague, William, named what I hadn\u2019t seen before: that I\u2019m speaking both to community and absence, and what community can mean in absence\/when absence has to happen. As apart from my team and my previous plans as I was, my choices and options were informed by my community, and my community helped shorten the distance I experienced and supported the choices I could control. That\u2019s a takeaway for me too: that there were still things I could control, even within all that I couldn\u2019t, and the community I\u2019m a part of played a huge role in me getting from point A to whatever point I\u2019m at now, and wherever I\u2019ll get to next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Sarah Norek This past summer, life happened for me. As in, this past summer, an unexpected life event came along and completely derailed what I\u2019d imagined my summer \u2013 at work and outside of it \u2013 would be. It involved family, and medical stuff, and a lot of not knowing, and time. July was &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/success\/2023\/10\/24\/belonging-in-absence\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Belonging in Absence&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7588,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall-2023-issue-1"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/success\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/success\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/success\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/success\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7588"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/success\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=561"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/success\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":562,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/success\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561\/revisions\/562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/success\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/success\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/success\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}