Going to school is never easy, but as I’ve alluded to in greater and lesser detail these past weeks, this semester combined with various other trials in my personal life has been particularly grueling. At times I feel like the little train that could, chugging through my days seeing little or nothing around me and muttering my constant mantra: I think I can I think I can I think I can I think I can, until I can no longer think and then my brain feels like it gives up. My brain says, hey, log jam here lady. I need some time to clear out the crap before you can start cramming more in again. But there is no time. It’s very depressing. No time, no money, no life, just a mantra: I think I can get through one more minute. I think I can read one more page. I think I can do one more problem. I think I can get up one more day.
This strange tunnel vision zombie like life does weird things to your health and your soul. I was shuffling along, bundled up like an Eskimo at 4 am this morning, walking Rupert. He stopped in one of his usual places to have a pee, and the cold had left this diamond dust sparkly sheen all over wood privacy fence Rupert likes to pee on and in my strangeness I had to stop and think about how beautiful that was, and how a few centuries ago that would look so magical, but then my study brain kicked in and began de-mystifying it thinking about the chemistry and physics behind the sparkliness. I don’t know whether to feel happy about what I’ve achieved or sad. In one sense, this education has proven to me I can learn this difficult but fascinating stuff. On the other hand, it’s changing me and sucking up everything I have leaving me feeling empty, exhausted and no more secure than I was before. I’ve had to sacrifice so much to get here, and I still have such a long way to go. And as I wander through the dark, quiet cold morning looking at all the snug little houses I can’t help but feel a bit of panic. I’m doing all this so one day I can own one of those snug little houses myself. So I can stop and contemplate the mysteries of crystalline sparklies on my own privacy fence. So I can have security and comfort and know that I don’t have to rely on anyone but myself to provide my necessities of life. But, will I make it? Will it all be worth it? Or will the deprivations suffered to slog through mountains of homework and hours of endless study result in bupkiss?
You just don’t know. Unless you try. But, Master Yoda always says, “do or do not. There is no try.”
So I get up again, and I do what I can, what I must. I’ve given it all I had to give. I hope it’s enough.
I suppose I’ll soon have an answer that will tell me if I’ve toiled successfully at least for these past couple weeks. I might not be able to get an objective grade on my life choices per se, but not to worry, college has a way of putting all my effort into perspective. Test taking. And while finals are still 3 weeks away, I managed, though a mystical conjunction of devilish minded teachers, to have multiple tests to take this morning.
I almost ended up having to take three tests today, at 8, 9 and 10 am. “Luckily” if that idea even applies, my College Algebra test and all it’s asymptote glory was pushed back to Monday. I think most of the critical concepts have been effectively jammed up there in my brain, but I don’t feel like there was enough time to do as much “assimilating” of the information as I’d have liked, despite all my very best efforts to focus, absorb and learn. As much as I mumble I think I can, reality often has it’s own mantra. For me it sounds like, I’m so tired I’m so tired I’m so tired…. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get my neurons to fire long enough to find the info I need and transfer it from some deep dark grey matter to a motor impulse allowing me to write comprehensible answers.
So, if you have any thoughts, chi or whatever to spare this morning, can you wish it my way? I need some good grades to buoy my spirit and get me through the last 3 weeks. I need some sign that all this is worth it.
Janie's Place 