Results: I did a medium job of trying mediumer (and it was excruciating)
I scan my faculty ID card, bink, and enter the silent building. I breathe out cold puffs of air and adjust my face mask. I don’t know how long it will take. All or nothing Aly would stay all day if I had to. I would not eat or break until my portfolio was perfect.
This time I set a time limit: 2pm. I will submit whatever I have completed by 2pm, I tell myself.
Thirty minutes in, my pulse is racing, butterflies swirl in my chest, what if I miss something? What if I’m doing this wrong? What if I mediumer is actually failure? What if I get fired–or worse–what if my performance evokes something less resounding praise?
An hour in, I’m talking myself out of the project completely, scrolling Instagram instead of compiling documents.
This is taking too long. I will never finish. Trying mediumer sucks.
I try out one of my favorite OCD strategies: maybe this is taking too long, maybe not. I keep working.
The adrenaline still pumps. I notice a typo on a PDF I’ve already created and uploaded. I leave it (gasp!).
By 1:30 I’ve compiled and submitted my materials for 2 of the 4 courses I’ve taught in the last year and a half.
At this point, sticking to my time limit would be actual sabotage. I’m disappointed I’m not excelling at trying mediumer. That my portfolio will take more time than I budgeted. That my medium isn’t..perfect.
I head home at 2 and get ready for a church barbecue. I can’t stop ruminating about the last two class materials I need to curate. I’m crying in the car as the kids listen to Blaze and my husband drives us to meet with friends. I make it through the barbecue but OCD is still sucking me in more than I would like. If my goal was to free up mental space to connect with the people in front of me, I am failing. But I am there.
The next morning, I let my anxiety, my need to finish, get the better of me. I stay home from church to work on my portfolio. I work through the final two classes doing “mediumer.” I let myself re-use my materials from my last evaluation. I have trouble downloading a file, so I just scrap it. Is this mediumer or irresponsible? I honestly don’t know. Will this all bite me in the butt later on?
I submit my portfolio at 10:53 on Sunday morning, over 24 hours before the deadline, which I have never done. Usually I am tweaking, strategizing, solving until the very last minute. It would be irresponsible not to use this extra time, wouldn’t it? I submit anyway, go for a walk, take a bath.
The real results won’t come until mid-March when I get the feedback from my evaluators. But that’s not really the point. I let OCD pull me in, but I also fought back. And that’s worth celebrating.