WFH Thoughts

I have written 11 books but each time I think ‘Uh-oh, they’re going to find out now. I’ve run a game on everybody, and they’re going to find me out.’ - Maya Angelou

Three months ago, I would have never thought that I would be in the space that I’m in. Not just in the middle of a pandemic, but in the middle of a pandemic as a new librarian in a new city. When I became a metadata librarian at the end of last year, I was so excited at the aspect of getting the chance to put the culmination of my learning, that ended four months prior, to practical use as a librarian. I had taken my first step on the librarianship ladder. I was also moving out on my own to a part of Texas that I had never even visited. It was a big step, but I was ready and optimistic [cue Sounds of Blackness’ “Optimistic”] about what 2020 would have in store for me. This was going to be a good year, both professionally and personally; I could feel it. I would be turning 30, I had plans to travel more and do more of the things I wanted to do but felt I didn’t have time to do while in school and working full time.

As I spent all of February unpacking and making this apartment feel like “mine” (at least as much as I can…I’d like my deposit back) and figuring out my place at work, I couldn’t have realized that, for the foreseeable future, all I would be doing is nesting and figuring out my place at work while not being physically at work. While my colleagues had projects and tasks that they could finally get to because they couldn’t do their regular work, I was still trying to figure out what regular work would be for me. Logically, this was because half of the two months and change that I’ve been a librarian has been under quarantine. I hadn’t had the time to process being at my new job, getting things sorted (my service time and vacation time from my previous job hasn’t been transferred yet), and figure what the colleagues that I’d be frequently working with were doing. Unfortunately, it’s hard to only think logically during a pandemic; I’m not the only one . This #WFH life has caused an insidious thought to rear its ugly face, “what if all of this [gestures wildly] stems from the fact that I actually, without a doubt, don’t know what the heck I’m doing?”

“But Ateanna, you were offered the job. If the committee and everyone involved felt that you didn’t know what you what you were doing or could do, they wouldn’t have offered you the job.” I get that, and I appreciate it, but impostor syndrome won’t let me be great. It won’t even let me be okay. I suffer, at times from, what Matthews & Clance (p. 71) describes as an “internal experience of intellectual phoniness.”¹ WOW. Despite the deluge of workshops and tutorials I’ve registered for (I’ll be a master manipulator of metadata soon enough), I still feel like I’m not doing enough or don’t know enough. This time in quarantine, especially being alone, is a time of contemplation. Right now, I’m unpacking more than cute furniture and décor. I have to sit with the fact that there will be times where I can reassure myself that I’m doing the best I can with what I have, what I’ve learned, and the current state I find myself in. I have to, like everyone else, understand how to do things (like celebrate a birthday) in the “new normal.” I have to grab a bit of gratitude where I can. Here we go: I’m enjoying putting furniture together. Twitter is kinda fun when it’s not a cesspool of “the wretched.” I am actively working to be better – which is what this thing called life is about, getting and being better all the time.

You don’t have to be an expert. No one is expecting you to be an expert. All you need to do is show up and be you. - Ruth Soukup