My Dear John letter to Academia: Processing grief through writing
A few years before I quit academia, I wrote a “dear John” letter to the Higher Ed community to help me process letting go, even though I knew then I wasn’t quite ready. I could feel the need for radical, right-aligned change looming after my burnout and stress injuries.
There was a letter version that was angry and blaming. Then, there was a version filled with gratitude. I needed to write both versions.
Usually, we need to express the raw and dark before the critical hope becomes available to us.
The earliest versions in my journal were bitter, hurt, angry. They were full of could-have-beens, should-have-beens, wishes, regrets… and on and on. These early versions were filled with the stories I told myself that reinforced my victimhood and martyrdom.
I had given up so much of myself, my time, my energy, and my health for something I believed in so fully: the transformative power of graduate education and serving others through higher education. This belief made processing the anger, hurt, and bitterness so much harder.
One morning while working at the library, I finally let the grief wash over me: the regrets, losses, loves, truths, and suffering created from my own overing patterns in a system designed to exploit and take.
I felt relieved.
Only now was I able to write to my career (institutions, students, colleagues), thanking it for all the gifts and lessons it presented me time after time. Only after the anger, and then the grief, and then the relief, did I write my Dear John letter to Higher Ed.
While I didn’t leave right away, with that letter, I did let go with lovingkindness.
Eventually, a couple of years later, when I did turn in my resignation, it included this quote from the late great poet, feminist, and activist Audre Lorde.
“I want to live the rest of my life, however long or short, with as much sweetness as I can decently manage, loving all the people I love, and doing as much as I can of the work I still have to do.”
Without moving through that grieving process, I don’t believe I could have left academia without burning bridges and hurting people.
Whether you want to stay in your current career or go, maybe you are feeling called to grieve and let go of an old identity, a way of working, or your hopes and dreams for your career.
Join us to learn some practices and reflections to work through your own grieving and rebuilding anew at a free workshop I’m hosting on November 29.
P.S. Two quick things about this workshop:
It's not just for those in higher education / academia.
I'll be recording the workshop, so if you can't make it on November 29 still sign up and I'll send you the replay and workbook.