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Home is the Most Unsettling Place
Visiting the university after my resignation
I left when the streetlamps were turning on for the evening. I made it a point to leave alone, to walk back to the campus gates alone, leaving behind everyone I reconnected with again during socials and dinner. “Joaquin is waiting for me outside,” I reasoned, referring to my autistic child for whom I left my teaching job of 17 years.
Joaquin wasn’t the only reason, though, both my for leaving early that evening and for giving up my tenure. But caring for him myself after his diagnosis became the most convenient reason. I didn’t have to convince myself much, to others I didn’t have to explain much. I’d long felt my leaving to be inevitable for tiny, tragic, inexplicable reasons that didn’t feel grave enough, till Joaquin came along like he was the permission I needed to be decisive. That was how, in a way, he saved me. And he still does.
Since Joaquin, I can easily walk away. From anything. From conversations, responsibilities, invitations. I need to guard my energy reserves, I would say. With Joaquin to presumably spend my energies on, it’s easier for others to let me go.
When what in fact Joaquin secures for me, every time, is solitary time. So I walked alone around campus on my way to the west gate where I’d left my ID card for a…
