In November I made the decision to quit my job but it wasn’t until February that the negotiations around my departure began in earnest. Unfortunately what I expected to be simple and straight forward, transpired quite differently. Rather than traipse peaceful to my farewell point, I found myself groping the slippery path to Calvary. I don’t care to revisit this fraught period on the blog, but mention it only because the story I am about to tell arises from it and only makes sense in its relation to the toxic work context.
Last night when I went to pick up my son from catechism, I found a copy of the church’s “Editorial” lying on the pew where I had parked. I turned to the back page where one of the parishioners – a woman named Madeleine apparently — had proffered a short text, a personal account of fresh simplicity all too rarely found in pious quarters. She wrote: “…dès que je cherche à changer par rapport au mal que j’ai pu causer, et que je reconnais tout cela c’est déjà un soulagement, bientôt une renaissance : j’accepte de mourir à moi-même » (… as soon as I try to change in relation to the hurt I have caused and recognize what I’ve done, I already feel relief, and soon a renaissance : I accept to die to myself… )
The day had been particularly trying and the hostility I felt toward my colleagues which I had managed to express a bit too palpably in our email exchanges left me feeling resentful, miserable, at odds with my fellow man, my sister woman. These sentiments had taken lodging in me, failed to pay their rent and I knew I couldn’t take their toadying anymore. I wanted them out. I wanted the two-month long marathon of misery to end. I read Madeline’s « j’accepte de mourir à moi-même” and realized I had my key. How simple after all: I just needed to die to myself. I needed to go up in flames, and fast.
So I hoisted a prayer up the gothic vaults: “Oh help me, Merciful Maker, for I must die unto myself. And not in a week or a month, but NOW! Tout de suite! And I mean Tout de Suite! MERDE!” Then, remembering my manners I added: “And thank you in advance.”
You can yell at the Lord, She’s tough, but never forget to express your gratitude.
Leaving the church I felt a small degree of relief. I went to bed early and miraculously slept through the night without lying awake for hours as my habit has been of late.
In the morning I felt not only much better but chirpy – how extraordinary! As if with an eagle’s eye I looked down upon the past two months, its players and I saw the foolishness of it all, so much bad feeling generated between people who deep down like each other but who find themselves in a hopelessly stressful situation. From this distance I felt a rush of compassion; the hurt, resentment and hostility had taken the high road late in the night.
And now here’s the truly strange part:
I am sitting having breakfast with my husband, listening to France Culture on the radio. Suddenly, having not quite gotten through my first cup of coffee, I am seized by a whopping contraction. A birthing contraction, my friends, that has me falling out of my chair and writhing on the floor. It starts small and sharp, then grows to the point of monstrous expansion, stretching the pain beyond the boundaries of decency. My husband – such moments aren’t easy for the menfolk – utters a bewildered, “Mais qu’est-ce qui se passe?” (What’s going on?)
“Aie, aie, aiiiiee!!!”
The contraction finished, I plop myself back on my chair and burst out laughing. “Je viens d’accoucher… de moi-même!” (I just gave birth… to myself!) The absurdity, the implausibility, the downright madness of this possibility have me chortling like a Taoist monk high on rice wine and tumbling down a precipice.
Is this what the new-agers call “rebirthing”? If so, I don’t have to pay a guru hundreds of dollars to make it to happen. I can manage quite well on my own, thank you. My husband begins to laugh with me, though uneasily; after all, if I am seriously deranged, to chortle with me could be punishable under French law’s “non assistance à personne en danger” (failure to assist a person in danger) clause.
But I am not in danger and I don’t need help. I’ve just helped myself and it is exhilarating. My body amazes me; its honesty is exemplary, its response to the mind’s machinations as sharp and flawless as Joan of Arc’s to the Church’s lawyers in Rouen. I have no explanation for what happened, but it happened and I was overcome with the cosmic Lao Tseu giggle which is a like a spa vacation for the rambunctious psyche.
Friends, I feel better. If this happens to you, don’t be afraid. Give me a ring. We’ll chortle hard.