Judith Lacy's Jottings: Basing your identity solely on your job unhealthy

My modelling debut, October 2014. It's me, but it isn't me. Photo / Supplied

OPINION:

Mum has a photo of me on her dining room wall. I know it's me but I don't identify with it.

If you're thinking it's Judith when she was a baby or off to her first day of school you would be wrong.

The photo was taken only eight years ago, right here in Palmy. The occasion was my modelling debut for a fundraising fashion parade.

I was at my skinniest having made healthy eating and lots of exercise my top priority since leaving a demanding and high-profile job two years earlier. You could say the stars aligned to give me the push I needed literally and metaphorically to get on my bike, get a personal trainer, stop drinking hot chocolates every day, and take notice of my comfort eating.

It's not just my size that I don't identify with in that photo, but the clothes, jewellery and especially the makeup.

I was made redundant from journalism, a career I had sought since I was 10, 18 months after that modelling debut. And, yes, I have put back on nearly all the weight I lost.

It's only been this year I can look back on what I've come to call my wilderness years with some clarity. I made some dumb decisions, professionally and personally, and I got sick, very sick. I listened to people I shouldn't have, my trust was often misplaced.

I can see now that part of the reason for those wilderness years was I lost sense of who I was. I could no longer identify as a journalist. So much of my identity was tied up in my career.

A few months ago I was having a particularly bad day at work. I remembered I'd received an email from a Massey academic last year that had her professional title but also that she was a mother of two. I assume she meant human kids but I thought why not say "Maysie's mum" after editor on my email signature.

I thought I'd be asked to remove it but I haven't. It's done wonders for reminding me I am more than my job and it's sparked some interesting conversations and heartening connections. I joke Maysie the cat is my editorial assistant so it seems fitting to have her role acknowledged.

A few weeks ago I got chatting with a well-known Palmerstonian about identity and how the first thing we white Kiwis usually ask someone on meeting them for the first time is "what do you do?"

I agreed wholeheartedly with this acquaintance when they said the way Māori list their maunga, awa, waka, iwi, and parents is so much better. Nothing can change these things, they tie you to people and the environment rather than to status, and they are so much more grounding than your job. When your job goes - for whatever reason - the maunga stands proud, the awa flows to the moana.

Ko Taranaki te maunga, ko Whanganui te awa, nō Whanganui ahau.

My wilderness years, which lasted about three years, definitely made me a better journalist and a better person. I like to think they have better prepared me for retirement.

I do recognise the shoes in that modelling photo. I'm wearing them as I type and didn't realise I've had them for so long.

What do you do, Judith? I make my shoes last. I breathe. I think. I learn.

This is a Public Interest Journalism funded role through NZ On Air