stick

 One of the songs on both my "Good-bye Songs" playlist and my "Fun Music" playlist is Ingrid Michaelson's "Stick." 

"Did any of me stick at all?" the singer asks a past romantic partner. 

But I think it's a question that is part of other relationships--friendships, family connections, teacher-student relationships. When I'm no longer there, have I left an impression? Did I have an impact? Did any of me stick? 

This week, I got an email notification of a LinkedIn message from a former student in my previous job. I expected a request for a letter of reference or a multi-level marketing pitch.* Instead, when I clicked through I was pleasantly surprised to read a heartfelt note about this alum's recent experience of rereading Emily Dickinson's "Because I Could Not Stop for Death," which she had first met in my World Literature course. We had a lovely exchange of messages about the experience of revisiting a text after time had passed and realizing that it hits differently. 

As a person who has lived in four US states and two foreign countries; who has studied at three universities and taught at eight; who has been a waitress/hostess/busboy, a county park groundskeeper, and a toll road administrative assistant; I know that each of these places and the people with whom I interacted there have stuck with me. 

It is because of my middle school friend Brea that I appreciate dance as an art form. It is because of my high school church friends Keith, Greg, and Theron that I have the particular opinions I have about gun control and that I can navigate a chair lift and a ski slope. Working in a commercial kitchen taught me the value of tidiness, and working in a sprawling park taught me to anticipate maintenance between emergencies. This list is endless, really. I am an agglomeration of interactions with the people who have mattered to me. 

At the end of my last semester as an undergrad, I was sitting in the University Chaplain's office, and Joe asked me who I thought I would keep in touch with. "Be realistic," he said, "in five years you won't still be friends with all of these people." After thinking about it, I replied, "Chris and Lou, for sure. Probably Taylor. Maybe Mark. And someday I'm going to vote for Brad." And I haven't been wrong. Those friendships have stuck. (Though I've only voted for Brad if we count voting for the candidate he was working for.)

I have been changed, as another of the songs on my "Good-Bye Songs" playlist says, for good by all of these people and many others. 

Michaelson's question is, at its core, a question of anxiety about identity and power. Did any of me stick? Did I have an impact? Does what I do matter? Will I affect the future? It is the antipode of T. S. Eliot's question "Do I dare disturb the universe?" Eliot's Prufrock knew that his actions would have an impact, and ultimately didn't dare because he couldn't predict what that impact would be. A different kind of anxiety.

The program I'm currently teaching (remotely) for is small enough that students will almost unavoidably take multiple classes with each faculty member, and now that I'm in my third year teaching here, many of the students are repeats on my roster. Their weekly journals occasionally reveal the ways that lessons from earlier semesters have stuck with them. It's a nice form of reassurance that the work I am doing is worth doing, that I have an impact, that some of me sticks with them. (Pro tip: If you find yourself thinking fondly of a teacher/professor from the past----reach out and tell them! Email, Messenger, LinkedIn, gold leaf on vellum, carrier pigeon--just pick one.)

Working remotely and living on the other side of the world from my nearest and dearest makes for a hermit-like life. (Well, a hermit with an internet connection and social media platforms. ;) )Though I've been in Yerevan for six months, I haven't built a community here. Some of the reasons have been beyond my control, but not all of them. I have always been terrible at being the new girl. Living here will have a lasting impact on me certainly. But will any of me stick here? Do I dare to try? 

My anxiety is Eliot's and Michaelson's wrapped up together. 

_________

*For the record, I will always make an effort to write a good reference letter for a former student. MLM pitches, on the other hand, I will always delete.