In college, I had a lot of loser mentality left-over from high school, but I struggled against it and actually made many good friends and a wide circle of acquaintances. Even so, there was always a circle of people I never felt cool enough for. But I repressed my feelings of inferiority and went about doing things that made me happy. I played music, I acted (badly), and spoke to strangers I found interesting, hoping to turn them into friends.
Years later, on facebook, I got a message from a girl who thanked me for inviting her to sit at my table at lunch one time. One time. After that, I only had sporadic contact with her, but apparently that one instance of my kindness, and my ability to be my own person, allowed her to become more confident and forge her own way in turn.
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I left a job in 2008. It was my first full-time, professional position, but it wasn’t a good fit, and it wasn’t a healthy environment, and after securing another job, I had a no-holds barred exit interview wherein I laid everything bare, with the hope that my honesty would make things better for the staff and patrons I was leaving behind.
Two or three years later, my colleague from that library found me at a professional development event and told me how things changed after I left, for the better, and how thankful she was that I had been so honest, and removed some of the fear from the department and the library.
* * *
In the fall of 2012, I left a job again, for a new opportunity I’d be a fool to pass up. This time it was harder; I’d spent over four years with mostly the same team of coworkers, and I’d watched jabbering toddlers turn into self-assured first graders. I had a family at this workplace, but it was time to go. I was, like Chunky Rice in Craig Thompson’s graphic novel of the same name, a flower that had outgrown its pot: I needed to move on in order to keep growing.
Occasionally I’ll meet up with or hear from a coworker who was my best collaborator, and she’ll tell me that certain families still talk about me, and how the work I did there has had a lasting impact on the organization. The conversations make me equal parts proud and sad. I miss those families, those programs, that community…but I’m proud that I had an impact. I’m proud that I made a difference.
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I wrote my Ego post back in January, and it’s still reverberating around the librarian community. It spawned many varied reactions and even a movement (Show me the Awesome, which I unfortunately didn’t participate in because I wasn’t feeling very awesome, but that’s another story for another time). I still think about it. I still despair over how we treat people who work with kids and teens, especially early childhood educators. I despair about how this profession and this country treats women. We still have a long way to go.
Then ALA2013 happened. Now, I love/hate conferences. I’m an extroverted introvert, so four days of extended social activity both excites me and fills me with dread–but I was so excited to present with two of my good friends, and there were so many people I wanted to meet in real life (pretty much the majority of my blogroll, including Mel of Mel’s desk, Marge of Tiny Tips for Library Fun, Sara of Bryce Don’t Play, Anna, Rachel, Angie, Cory, too many to list!). It was as amazing and as terrifying as I’d hoped.
Like many people have already said, Guerrilla Storytime was my favorite part of the conference. I don’t know how I missed the discussion of it on twitter before the conference, but I was happy it came across my radar right before ALA. I culled the origin story from The Show Me Librarian:
Cory Eckert, the idea-genius I just mentioned, is the youth services manager at the Octavia Fellin Public Library in Gallup, New Mexico. Back in March, Eckert took to Twitter with an idea for storytime skills building and advocacy among the larger librarian population. Why not stage pop-up storytimes at a major library conference like ALA Annual? Such an event would allow youth services librarians to share their expertise and learn from their peers, and the fact that other non-YS librarians would be able to see the activity in the public space would foster awareness that storytime is so much more than just reading books to kids.Anna Haase Krueger of Future Librarian Superhero created a Google Group to allow interested librarians to continue the conversation in depth, and shortly after the term “Guerrilla Storytime” was chosen as the name for the project.
I participated twice, on Saturday (was it Saturday?) and Monday afternoon, while sitting on the fake porch stage. It was amazing. A casual, enthusiastic exchange of ideas, out in the open, where everyone could see what we were doing. We didn’t need anyone to recognize us– we were making our presence known and unavoidable. To paraphrase myself from my presentation with Carolyn and Kristi, we were infecting each other with awesome and spreading that contagion throughout the entire conference.
I could wax poetic for hours, but in the interest of brevity, I’m going to stick to my main thesis of making a difference. Even when you don’t think you’re making a difference, you are. The Guerrilla Storytime is a perfect example of this: I’m sure there were dozens of librarians lurking around, who didn’t participate, who have a new found appreciation for how crazy and wonderful children’s librarians are, or children’s librarians who were too shy to speak up but drank in the information provided. Further, it reminds me something that I often forget– that sometimes it takes time for recognition and reaction to occur. It’s like that old saw about how it takes ten years for an overnight sensation to make it big. In terms of librarianship, I am but an egg– I’ve only been in the game since 2006. I think I’ve done some amazing things in my time, but there’s more time, and more things to be done. More differences to make.
You are the same way. You might not think you’re affecting lives, or doing good works. I assure you, you are. Some times you just have to wait– for a new job, for a conference, for an award–for the effects to be seen.
Until then, keep busy doing amazing things that make you happy. The rest will come. I promise.
Some ALA 2013 round-up posts that speak for me, as well:
Hi, Miss Julie 
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