Letting Go of What You've Made

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Yesterday, a Saturday—July 1st, 2023 to be exact—marked my last day in what had been my position for six years: Dean of the College of Arts, Humanities, & Social Sciences at my institution. The College is the largest in the university and, in terms of programming, the most diverse.

We built a list of significant accomplishment in six years with little pre-determined script with which to work. Oh, believe me when I tell you that I had grand plans… then one month into the job we merged with three other institutions, and then once that work was finally completed, well, this thing called a pandemic happened. And mixed in there was turnover, with me working for 3 Chancellors and 3 Provosts. Maybe only fools believe things will go as expected, and thankfully I am not that fool, so a part of me was always ready to confront the worst, or unexpected, while seeking the best outcomes. Basically, my attitude was We’re going to make this good thing happen, no matter what.

We did succeed, and then some. And since this post is not a resume, I’ll keep it short, like an abridged version of the abridged version: we now have graduate programs where once we had none, we now have non-credit programming where we once had none, we created undergraduate programs that students were clamoring for but we didn’t offer, I raised around 8 million dollars, we now have a giant statue of a Phoenix (our mascot) where previously nothing stood, and most importantly: we grew last year! A near miracle for arts and humanities colleges. Again, we grew!

But to get there… I took almost no vacation as Dean (Covid had me working 80+ hours a week) and I easily left over $100k in earned leave benefits unused—time to myself swept away at the end of each fiscal year. I spent no money on myself for professional development (only once, actually, to attend Wayzgoose!), as tight budgets led me to push that money out to our excellent faculty instead, which was the right thing to do. Still, in the process, I burned myself to ash and hollowed out all my energy and ideas, leaving behind a husk of what I was when I began.

So I walked away because I had nothing left to give; to have continued would have hurt what I had pledged to support and protect. And when it’s over, it’s over—you come to a screeching halt. On Friday, Jun 30th, I worked nonstop to ensure all my people were eligible for an upcoming pay raise, and when I woke up Saturday, all of what once rested in my hands was in the hands of others.

Midjourney’s response to the prompt “energy juxtaposed with fatigue”

So my question to anyone out there is… how do your turn off your brain?

How to you change the habit of what you were into what you will be? How do you shift from one role into another? I have done this before, but not quite to this extreme. Being a Dean was a 24/7/365 role for me—you always had to be on and ready, eyes and ears open for opportunities. You always had to show up because serendipity lives everywhere. You’re with your family on a weekend and you meet someone new at an event…there’s a sliver of possibility there, maybe a connection to keep in mind, and you exchange cards. You’re working. You’re at the Phiharmonic performance in our wonderful campus performing arts center…but you’re also working.

You get the picture. Habits are hard to break. Now I have to break an all-consuming, six-year habit. I’m sitting here writing, or maybe walking through the day, and what sits in my head and gut is this tumor of a feeling: There’s something I’m not doing! What is it? Yes, I could decide to seek Dean or Provost positions in the future, but I’d have to recharge, rebuild ideas, and most important of all, see my daughters through their remaining high school years, which they are loving. But what about now?

How many walks or runs will it take for this feeling to go away? This feeling that you’re missing or forgetting something? Do you have to “take up something new” to replace what is gone (Hooray, now is my moment to learn ancient Greek!)? Or is the strategy to remember who you were in the “before times”? For me, that means writing and endlessly sending out poems for near-endless rejection. (But hey, I had a poem in The Drift!) Is it time to return to the first completed draft of my science fiction novel that some agents nibbled at but didn’t take? Or do I buy a camera and take more photos of sandhill cranes as they fly overhead, their cries like the sound of doors coming unstuck from their frames?

I am proud of everything we accomplished as a College. I wouldn’t change any of the big things. But now there’s this other big thing—empty space. I head into a sabbatical (my second in 20 years) with no compass and a mind and body still in thrall to a single habit. I’m not good at breaking habits, but I need to learn fast. Old dog. New tricks.

What are your new tricks?