My Blog readers and Instagram followers know that I have written a memoir. I describe it as a memoir-in-essays based on my experiences as an elementary school teacher, mother, and wife living with a rare autoimmune disease. I don’t fit the stereotypical picture of someone who is disabled, because though I experience daily pain and weakness in my left leg, I do not rely on assistive devices on a daily basis.

What you may not know is that, in addition to consisting of standard personal essays, my memoir also includes essays in the form of short school assignments, such as journal prompts, spelling words, and poems, that I use to tell parts of my story while also  giving readers a glimpse into my teaching style.

So this week, I thought I would share one of the “school assignments” from my manuscript:

Directions:  As part of our language arts unit about careers, I’d like you to create a job. Invent a job that doesn’t exist, or that you don’t think exists. Explain the title of the job, the duties expected of the person who has this job, and why you think this is a job that should exist in the world.

My invented job:

I would like to be an interior decorator, specializing in exam rooms and testing rooms — places where patients spend extended periods of time on their backs.

My invented job is inspired by my experiences. I have spent a lot of time on my back, staring up at bland ceilings, thinking of all that wasted space and potential. Patients undergoing these sorts of tests most likely have a lot going on with their bodies, and, as a result, also their minds. It certainly would help me to have something pleasant to look at, something that distracts me from the sterile environment I find myself in as I lie still and am slowly swallowed up by an MRI machine. 

In my role as a specialized interior decorator, I would strive to create rooms that evoke pleasant, calming, enjoyable sensations. For example, rooms could be decorated by color — various shades of blue, for instance, which some people think of as serene and reminiscent of the ocean and the sky. Some rooms could be themed, such as an outer space room with glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling and models of planets dangling overhead. Rooms could be place-oriented, such as one painted in golden hues with murals of pyramids and sphinx to represent Egypt, and another room could suggest classic elegance with ornate chandeliers hanging from the ceiling.

It feels so obvious, and yet I have only ever been to one MRI room that had a few images of clouds on the ceiling. Surely I can’t be the only patient who wishes for a pleasant distraction, something to focus on, while staying still during an MRI or while having my blood drawn.

Friends, I’d love to know – what job would you invent?