unrest

The last few days have been very, very strange. Perhaps this is the transition of being Post-MFA settling in. I am tired, as in, sleep ten hours and wish for three more tired. As in, fall asleep at 7 p.m. when normally I'm up until at least 2. Dreams and real life swishing back and forth in my consciousness because I don't usually remember my dreams, but weird things have been "happening" that I don't altogether believe have happened, so they must be dreams.

I am afraid of getting old. Of having a body that doesn't work the way I remember it working. Of having a mind that I believe is working fine but everyone else thinks is turning to mush. I have a long, long time before this fear is realized, but the other day, after sitting at my desk for 10 hours working on PhD applications, my joints were screaming.

I am afraid of not getting into a PhD program. Of getting into a PhD program and not getting a job. Of never, ever being able to pay off my student loan debt. Of being alone because academia will make me leave my family. I've never left home. Will I find a new one when I do?

The sun is shining today, and later, I will go ice skating for the first time since high school. With people who I know but am not close to. People who, for the last four months, I have been paranoid about. In 4th grade, my "friends" kicked me out of their club. Ever since, I've been afraid of being part of a group. Or, of feeling that I'm part of a group but actually only being connected to it by circumstance. It seems normal for women to have distrust for the opposite sex, but I distrust females. With very few exceptions, my girl friends have hurt me in the past much more than any boyfriend ever did.

The summer before my MFA began, my mother had a lung transplant. I knew at that time that my whole life was going to change. I was talking to an old friend one night about how uncomfortable I was with the transition. She began asking me quick-fire questions. Do you want love or money? Are you lonely or alone? Do you want a job or a career? Are you sad or afraid. Sad or afraid? I started crying when she asked me this--I thought I was sad, but I was afraid. I never knew afraid felt like sad.

Today, I am happy and afraid, and I don't know what to do with that combination. My mother's lung transplant and my MFA did change my life. It is exponentially better than it was two and a half years ago. My mother has always been my solid place, but when she was sick, the ground was always slipping out beneath me. She got better and and everything was paved with safety. She got better and so did my relationship with my father. With my sisters, who I used to think of as mother replacements but who I now think of as friends.

Meanwhile, grad school let me try out things I always wanted to try--writing seriously, sending work out for publication: things I only dreamed about while I stole late-night hours from myself to write the poems and stories that occupied my mind whenever I had a quiet moment. Grad school introduced me to people who understand that impulse, who work just as hard as I do to balance time spent writing with time spent in the real world, people who are comfortable with quiet and with thought, but who love boisterous camaraderie also. Grad school afforded me the time to discover what makes me happy and productive: a flexible schedule, time to visit the people who are important to me, time to read and write and explore ideas--not a 9-5 job and a rigid list of what I have to do/am allowed to do. Showed me that teaching is something I enjoy and am good at, that even someone shy and timid can stand in front of a classroom and demand respect. I've always been a hard worker, but Grad School taught me tenacity, how to keep beating down the walls of insecurity or confusion until things work, make sense, fit together. I know who I am now, and what I want, I'm just not sure how to take ahold of it and make it happen.

And so my body and my mind are shutting down, forcing me to sleep through the thoughts that are making me just a tiny bit insane, making me dream about weird, weird things because I don't know how to process them consciously. And I'm confused. I should be calm, content, excited for the next steps I have to take. I should be loving the process of applying to PhD programs because I know I am ready, I know that I can contribute to any English Department who chooses to let me, I know that I am a poet and writing will always be one of the most important elements of my life. So why the anxiety? What, exactly, am I afraid of? Success? It seems so. I'm a fighter...what do I do when things are working? I have a long running love affair with angst. What do I do when angst stops giving me what I need? How do I kick it out of bed when everything else is working?

I stop lamenting, stop living in my head, and go back to the to do list. Four more applications to finish. When that's done, time to work on next semester's syllabi. After that, finishing my ms so I can start entering contests. And Christmas, less than a week away. Time to be with family, the family that fits together so well, even though we're all a little nutty. Even though Mom and Dad bicker like Ralph and Alice. Even though Carla and I get snarky when we spend too much time together. But I'll sleep on Mom and Dad's couch until we start fighting, and then I'll go home. I'll eat 4000 cookies this week and vegetables next week. I'll drink a bottle of wine and two Advil and wake up feeling fuzzy, but Mom will have made waffles and bacon and a little sugar and grease will cover up the hang over. Before I know it, spring semester will begin and I'll be too busy to worry about PhDs until the envelopes come in the mail. Then the angst can begin again. In the meantime, I have things to do.