So. A note on me and change. I love change. Or the idea of it: I love last days at work and suddenly skipping town (or the country) and signing yearbooks and saying goodbye. When change actually happens, though, I take a long long time to normalize. I go into watch mode. (My favorite line of Dr. Suess from my favorite book: "It's gray day, everything is gray. I watch, but nothing moves today.") I make piles, I sleep in, I'm super introspective, it's kind of mental hibernation. Something I've put together about myself.
BUT. I think I'm back.
School is going great. Great. The transition was hard (Dear graduate school: do you think you could spend a little less energy trying to terrify me and a little more energy on throwing me catered banquets with really exceptional polenta? Thanks.) and I've been go-go-go-ing from the time I throw myself out of bed until I fall back into it 16 hours later. I had a couple of small panic attacks (Connie and Dave: I will probably not be dropping out of school to start a non-profit) but. This is where I am. I'm going to work hard here and see what happens and I'm really excited.
This is where you are.
I wrote about this? In the book Plainsong a teenage girl finds herself pregnant and kicked out of her mom's house and talking to a teacher. She says something like she wishes she could move or go or didn't have to face her neighbors. The teacher says "this is where you are now." I love this. I love this and this is why: when I panic (when we panic?) I tend to look way way outside of myself for answers. I need to move to Mexico. I need to buy a trampoline. I need to run a triathlon. But that's hardly ever the right answer. The right answer is to make where I am the right place.
I was going to write some of the fantastic stuff I've been thinking through (we got to the theory part of my Research in Rhetoric seminar and I'm on effing cloud nine) but it will have to wait till I'm a little more coherent (and not watching Night of the Living Dead. And making zucchini muffins for Good Food Friday in class tomorrow).
Toodles!
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Oh yeah, I love this stuff is why.
Posted by Kjerstin Evans Ballard at 8:49 PM
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
ah, school. can i come? also, i have a testimony that making where you are the right place is important....imperative, even, for mental health. making it work where you are instead of constantly dreaming of where you think it would be easier to be, acting permanent in temporary places, fighting entropy and fear...i forgot where i was going with this list. but i've been thinking about this a lot lately, and i'm glad you wrote about it.
I'm glad things are on the upswing. I rather identified with the post, as you can probably imagine. :) (Except the bit about the banquet, unfortunately, which I skipped.)
Post a Comment