Break-up/Break-down/Break-through

I constantly struggle with how personal to get on this blog. My first impulse: totally personal. Then I remember that I'm also hoping to someday use this as a site for self-promotion and think that I should stick to academics and poetry.

Well, that's not very much fun. And while I've never had a ton of readers, I think there's even fewer these days. Is it possible that people actually prefer my whining and introspection? Hopefully, because today, that's what you're going to get.

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I've been sad lately. Sad about my break-up, sad about some other personal relationships that aren't/can't be what I thought/hoped, sad about being away from my family, etc. And what is surprising to me in all of this is learning to distinguish "sad" from "depressed." Having been diagnosed with chronic depression at 21 (and having self-diagnosed years before that), I am programmed to label all bad feelings: Depression. But that's not it. There's a difference between chronic and acute that I never had to learn. Right now, my sadness is directly related to events in my life, in a way that previously wasn't true.

I don't know what that all means, but it's something I'm trying to figure out. There's a lot I'm trying to figure out. Like who the hell I am after this last crazy year. This time last year, I was waiting anxiously to hear back about my PhD apps (I think I might have already heard from UIC, but I'm not sure) and everyone I talked to said they hoped I would end up in Chicago (well, maybe not everyone, but a lot of people) because small town girls like me need to live in a big city once in their lives. What? Says who? Something about being in unfamiliar territory being good for your work--a shock to the senses. Well, I still wonder why Chicago was supposed to be better for that than say, Knoxville, TN, or Tallahassee, FL (or any of the five other places I applied to). I'm way burnt-out on public transportation, smelly homeless people, and cement. Why couldn't I be someplace where a car isn't an inconvenience? Where there's grass in places other than public parks? Where you can actually see horizon once in a while (across the lake doesn't count)?

But back to the original question--how has this past year changed me? I haven't figured that out yet. I'm probably tougher, I guess, street-smarter. A little bit braver. I can do tequila shots without training wheels now, and drink PBR just as fast as anyone else sitting around Lil Joe's on a Wednesday night. I'm healthier--I quit smoking. But am I a better poet like everyone said I would be? Hell no. I haven't written a poem that I'm ready to submit since I've moved here, and it's been over six months. Maybe I've become a tougher critic. But mostly, I think being out of my comfort zone has forced me to focus on survival to such an extent that I don't know how to tap into my new/boundary-pushing experiences in a creative way.

I'm also less confident than I was when I got here, and I've never been a terribly confident person. I'm afraid to speak my mind in class because I don't want to disagree with the profs (and I usually do) unless I'm sure I can argue my side (and I usually can't), I constantly feel like I'm on the outside of an inside joke because I haven't read the right book or essay, I doubt my own abilities as a student/scholar/poet in ways that I never have before. On the other hand, I have increased confidence in my ability to teach and in my desire to teach. But the balance isn't good. Maybe that's it--balance. I can do tequila without training wheels but I can't do PhD work without them. I'm uncentered and off-kilter.

It's not all bad, though. My cohort (that's what they call the incoming class here) is amazing: lots of smart, interesting people who are as good at gossip and silliness as they are at theory and criticism. I'm heading back to Ohio on Friday for a much needed dose of family and country living. And even if I'm not doing work that I totally love, I'm being challeneged and pushed and do have some small bit of faith that eventually I will get out on the other side feeling smarter, more in control of my poetic talents, more eloquent, more prepared for my career as a poet and professor. I've never been so great at the waiting part, at the struggling through. I like instant gratification (who doesn't?) and I'm frustrated that the big changes haven't happened yet, I guess.

Still, I'm waiting for that break-through. I need some poetry to gush out of me too fast to edit. I need to come up with a kick-ass paper idea that I can get excited about researching and writing. I need to meet someone (a prof, another student?) who will click with me, my work, who will get what I'm trying to do and know how to beat it out of me. I'm freaking tired of floundering. I'm tired of writing half-baked drafts that bore me when I go back to them. I'm tired of being the new kid, the country girl who's homesick all the time, the MFA who doesn't know how to talk about theory. I just don't know how to fix any of it. I guess I'll just keep doing what I'm doing until I figure it out.

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And just for good measure--here's my "F-you, Chicago" song (and when I say Chicago, I mean my whole new life, just so you know. I'm over hating the city, for the most part (besides what I mentioned above).)