Shame

I’ve been quiet here recently not only because I have not set aside time to write like I should but also because the semester started a few weeks ago. While I am not taking classes this semester, I am helping teach again. Last year I fulfilled my teaching requirement by leading some of the recitation sections in a thermodynamics course and grading assignments. I offered to help teach the same course this year for a few reasons: to experience a more “normal” teaching setting contrary to last year’s more dire COVID-19 situation, to earn a little extra money, and ultimately to obtain more teaching experience. This time I am teaching all of the recitations. It’s going well so far. Preparing materials takes more time than I would like, but it is good practice.

2021 has been a weird year for me. Although the world is less chaotic than last year, 2021 has frustrated me more than 2020. During the summer I was going through a weird mental funk; I don’t know if I would call it depressive, but I felt hopeless much of the time. I still feel that way sometimes but to a lesser extent. I think the start of fall semester has alleviated some of those thoughts.

Lately, shame has burdened me in three different ways:

1. Work. I know I should not play the comparison game, yet I cannot help but feel absolutely useless at work. I don’t dislike what I study or do, but seeing other people generating data in the blink of an eye every day takes its toll. I realize I am much better at writing, reading, and thinking about science than I am at doing the science. I feel that I have little to show for myself and that I have not helped my advisor progress further on their project. I know it is normal to feel despair on the path toward a PhD. I know I am far from the only person who experiences imposter syndrome. I know I am hard on myself. I hate to admit it, but right now I feel like I am no longer going to work for myself because I cannot believe in my abilities. Rather I am here only because for some weird reason an esteemed letter writer from college and my advisor have believed that I can succeed. That’s enough reason for now but not much.

2. Next week I am heading to Washington D.C. to (hopefully) culminate a year-long process to get a new Russian passport. In brief, I had a long-expired Russian passport on hand, which needs to be renewed if I ever want to visit my birth country again in the future. This process is not only lengthy but also expensive. I had to pay the consulate to confirm my citizenship, which lasts several months, and now I have to fly all the way to the Capitol for an in-person interview and additional payments. All should go smoothly. I am excited but have not told many people about why I am going. I don’t think I could ever share this decision with my parents because they would be shocked – and not in a good way. As a child, my parents, especially my mom, swept my heritage was under the rug and frowned upon any relationship I might develop with my birth country. In a more general sense, there is, needless to say, tensions between the United States and Russia that also contribute to some of my shame. I’ve never felt a solid belonging in America, though I do like living here. What I am doing feels anti-American even if that is not my intention. I must repeat to myself that I am doing this for me.

3. I’ve barely told anyone nor have I ever written about this: I have leaned childfree for some years, but the pandemic has solidified my decision. I describe myself as an anti-traditionalist, and this choice feels like the climax. This is something else I could never tell my parents. After all, how could I not follow society’s script, the expectation that I, as a woman, will have children? I feel so strongly about this that, despite my age, I plan to get sterilized via a bilateral salpingectomy, assuming my insurance can cover most of the costs, sooner rather than later given the current widespread attacks on women’s reproductive rights. Why should I tolerate misery-inducing birth control options when I am confident motherhood is not for me? I am thankful that the few people with whom I have shared my position have been nothing but accepting and non-judgmental.