Welcome back...

So it ends: the first week of classes. It was a big "hello to Junior Year" this week.

I'm still not sure exactly what happened.

Moving in is a blur. At any rate, my stuff is here and put away. I love my apartment. I love having my own room. It feels like such a luxury after dorm life. I vividly remember getting up for the first day of classes - feeling excited and nervous... I remember walking across campus and looking at all the other wan souls who had a class at 8:30 Monday morning. They all looked a little shocked to be up that early and headed to class.

From that point on the week is a jumbled mix of syllabi, new professors, old faces, grocery shopping, filling out forms, assignments. I hate getting through my first flush of assignments. I just get so nervous and paranoid. I'm worried that over the summer I've somehow lost my ability to write well, to read fast, and to ask the right questions in class. Or, I worry that whatever I had last semester won't be enough this time around. Mostly I stay anxious until I know what the standards for evaluation are, and then I relax.

I feel different this semester, though. Even though my usual anxieties are poking their thorny claws into my thoughts, I feel more confident than I ever have before. More relaxed. Perhaps a little more open to mistakes and discomfort. I know I'll be fine. Better than fine, even.

I realize that now I've finally had time to relax and process things a little bit. Today I made myself eggs for breakfast, puttered around the ceramics studio, and had a wonderful chat with my my favorite professor. I turned in the first draft of my first story for the newspaper, which made me nervous. But I am working on letting that go. Now my biggest problem is resisting the urge to go buy a new dress for myself. Tonight, I think I will go dancing.

It just feels so good to be back here at school. I'm so excited for this semester, and excited for London in the Spring.

Life is good.

Sweet and Sour

I don't even know where to start. I feel confused. I feel confused because I feel like I should be okay. I should be okay. But I feel horrible. Things have been so good, and yet so frustrating and complicated. I don't know how to handle it. I don't feel like a grown-up, and yet I have all these grown-up problems and complications. Relationships are hard. Have you noticed that? Even if you are madly in love, it doesn't mean that you don't accidentally stomp all over each other sometimes. It doesn't save you from having fights and getting upset. The better the good times are, the harder the tough times become... I suppose that's just life.

I want to go back to the mountains. The air was clear up there. Clear and perfect. I was happy and grateful. The mountains are magic; they knock sense and gratitude back into me. Now I am back in the muddle of daily life and it is so very hard to hold onto that blessed perspective. I had the perfect weekend with my sweetheart, and I had him all to myself. Now I am back to hardly seeing him and arguing over the phone. Now I am back to work that is frustrating, children who are pushing my last nerve. Now I am back to stress over how I'm going to get everything done before I leave for school. I wanted to enjoy that last few weeks of my summer. Was I expecting too much?

I am learning how to compromise, and I am learning how to deal with things day by day. Even when things are hard, I can't imagine giving up. I'll keep fighting for the things that are important to me because... I just don't know what else to do. But by golly is it hard. Sometimes I just want to climb back on top that that mountain and stay there.


What I really want is a fresh start. This summer has been so full of ups and downs I can't even handle it anymore. School is hard and full of ups and downs too. But at least I had free counseling!

The summer sun shone round me

I am feeling lazy and oh so tired. I am waiting for the last vestiges of infection to leave my body. I'm getting impatient. I just want to feel like a normal person again.

Summer seems to play with my sense of time. Some days fly by and I can't even remember what I did. Some days drag by. Sometimes time seems to stand still. It stands still in those rare moments when I stop trying to fill up every minute. Once and a while I get to lie down and look at the sky, watching the sun fade away and the stars come out. Summer is so rich in the way that it sounds and smells... lying outside reminds me of last summer. How anxious I was!

I still feel anxious, yet for entirely different reasons. I am anxious about money and work. I am anxious about everything that I need to get done. I am so impatient to get back to school. At the same time, I think I have reached a level of contentment here. I am finally settled, I think. Home feels like home, and it feels good to be here. Work is hard, but I am becoming comfortable there too. Last night I spent an hour talking to one of the instructors, a man half my age and from a different country. Tae Kwon Do has the ability to bring a diverse group of people together, and I am grateful for that. I cannot help but feel that my life would be different without the people I have known in Tae Kwon Do; young and old, from America and India and Korea. I am astounded at the connections that can be made, even with language barriers and cultural differences. Even when they pass in and out of my life very quickly, the experience is somehow transformative.

And so the days pass, one after another. Another day another ten cents. I am so bad at being in the moment, but I am working on it.

THE summer sun shone round me,
The folded valley lay
In a stream of sun and odour,
That sultry summer day.

The tall trees stood in the sunlight
As still as still could be,
But the deep grass sighed and rustled
And bowed and beckoned me.

The deep grass moved and whispered
And bowed and brushed my face.
It whispered in the sunshine:
"The winter comes apace."

- Robert Louis Stevenson

Wallowing, The Sequel

So, thanks to causes beyond my understanding I've managed to get an ear infection. A big, ugly ear infection. I haven't had one of those since I was nine! And they hurt, too. Naturally, I had to start taking the super anti-biotics that seem to be eating away at my stomach lining. And for all I complain about work, I would much rather be there and healthy.... I'm trying hard not to calculate how much money I would have made if I'd been able to go to work these past three days.

Ehhh.

I worry too much. Everyone tells me this. I have much to be grateful for, like the family that puts up with me wallowing on the couch and watching Gilmore Girls all day. Also, the boy who comes right down to see me when I tell him I'm too sick to meet as we'd planned. I'm also grateful for my doctor, who I do like. I'm grateful for TV and knitting. (I want to travel with Anthony Bourdain!) I finally have time to do laundry, so that's good too.

So.

I want to go back to school. And I hate money. Hate it!

Wallowing

Oh. So, I haven't been over here in an unforgivably long time. I have committed the crime of not writing because I feel so overwhelmed - even though I know that is when I need to write most. Self-discipline has been beyond me, and when I do sit down to write nothing comes out right! Summer has been far from "a breeze." Work has been exhausting and all consuming, yet it still leaves me enough time to worry about the other things I should be doing. I have relatives I want to visit, places I'd like to go, and yet the thought of taking time off work makes my insides freeze up with anxiety. I really need the money. Something I have to keep reminding myself of when I am tired and irritated and desperate to spend more than three consecutive hours with my sweetheart. I am tired of snatching an hour here and an hour there with him after work in a coffee shop or in the middle of a party. I am tired of feeling like I'm hardly even seeing my family because we're all so busy. I am tired of feeling sick and put upon by my co-workers. I am already tired of dealing with large groups of children.

I just keep swimming around in my own negativity. I can't seem to snap out of it, so I am wallowing and waiting around for either
1) things to get better
or
2) for my own perspective to shift.

I am hoping both happen, and soon.

p.s. Homemade cherry pie = love. Happy Dad's day.