As most of you know, I am mostly teaching this Fall and taking the docere portion of my doctoring very seriously (Docere means to teach, and is the underlying meaning and premise of the word Doctor).
One of the assignments for my Lifespan Development and
Psychology course is to develop and write an autoethnography. In the context of development, I wanted my students to indentify a key relationship with a person, persons, or community that influenced them greatly in their development and who they are now. And it didn't have to be a success story either; for some, the influential relationship may have had a regressive effect, rather than progressive.
I can think of dozens of people who have
influenced me, primarily people who have conspired for my growth. Which, I think, is a key to my resilience (and to anyone's). When eyeballing the scales of justice, my postive and progressive influences have been far greater than the alternative.
However, one figure is a constant source of amusement and a mirror: my Day-in-Night Barbie.
She wore a suit. She was a busy corporate attorney who
owned and ran her own firm. She was single but dated. She wasn't married and wasn't sure she was going to be. She did not have kids and was not planning to. She drove a Mustang (imaginary). And even better, the back side of her condo was her office. She lived and breathed her career, and she was a badass.
When I think about my own autoethnography and try answer
David Byrne's question, my Barbie comes to mind. I did breed and
partner. And I don't have a Mustang because I like better gas mileage, though I still want one.
But here I am in middle adulthood working for myself in the community in which I live. Thriving. Working on my badass daily.
My 10-year-old self called upon my now 42-year-old self and brought her into being. She knew what I was about and what I was capable of. She was pretty badass
herself.
And now, as your teacher, I did some telling and am now doing some asking:
**Who helped you write or re-write your story?**
We already know how this will end. It's richness of your poetry thus far, and what fills the approximately 12,000 days that you have left, that I want you to be curious
about.
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