I think it finally hit me that my life is changing again, and I'm sort of in backpedal mode. No, I'm not pregnant. But I am starting grad school in September, and I am instructing two sections of English 101 in addition to taking my actual graduate courses (and still barista-ing on the side!) and basically, two weeks from now I will be trading in life as I know it so I can start all over again.
This was always part of my 'plan' [1], but it's hard to accept that I am, in fact, actually going back to school and actually getting hands-on, with-guidance practice/experience for the thing that I want to do as my career. I don't know how to be excited about that, because it's not even really ... real. It's like this pretend on-paper thing that's happening and it's all sort of still vague and overwhelming. Plus, the thought of actually teaching and being responsible for not one but two entire classes is just ... I mean, it's terrifying. Exciting, but terrifying. And I know in the back of my head that I really just have to--you know, show up, and go through the motions, and try not to stress out about how it's not going at all how I planned, and we'll all get through it together, but for the right-now, while I have the time to be thinking about it, it's sort of looming overhead as this big, all-consuming unknown thing.
And the weirdest part is that right now, I'm looking at the time I have before the four (count 'em, four) orientations before school starts, and I'm thinking, maybe I shouldn't have done this in the first place. I feel like I just started to figure my shit out. I somehow magically jumped the hurdle of "getting my ass in gear" and I have been faithfully writing, working out, and reading the Bible. Like, pretty much every day, or in a comfortably-alternating pattern. [2] I am creating, rather than finding, a balance of work/social life/Piera time. I've stopped stressing out quite so much about the times when I decide to do something relaxing, because it's occurred to me that it's actually good for me to let myself chill out for a while (who knew). In some ways I feel that I have a lot more on my mental/emotional plate than I have in a while, but in other ways, I feel a lot more at peace with myself in general. And I'm excited about it, and about being generally positive and happy, and I'm not ready to give it up yet! I just freakin got here!
Two weeks. Two weeks and three weekends of actually being the way I've been trying to be for the last three years: content. And that's already slipping away because the list of "things I have GOT to do before school starts" is growing--things like my proofreading gig, and having to actually research and decide on (and pay for....) my own health insurance, and cleaning/organizing my study (and finding a desk to put in it, which is really the most important part), and changing my facebook settings so that students can't see my stuff, and making sure I have some quality time with the sibs before they leave for school again, and buying things like nice pants and shoes maybe? and I already have upcoming weekend plans, and ... suddenly I don't even have my two weeks anymore, and I'm careening down the slippery slope into the future.
Don't get me wrong: I absolutely would not take it back. I can't wait to be back in school. I like me the best when I am in school--I love constantly learning, constantly writing, constantly being presented with new ideas and new ways of thinking. I love the schedule and the routine and the whiteboards and all of it. It just seems that I have been working so hard to get here that I have wasted the last three years, and it's almost ... not fair? to suddenly have figured out how to live a life that I enjoy. That I want. I finally hit my stride, and haven't I been looking for it my entire life?
In a way, it's probably taken these last three years of work and discontent and disappointment and hope in order for me to be "ready" [3] for this. A friend of mine pointed out that I needed to go through all of the challenges of the last few years in order to to learn how to face Life and find some kind of balance. I have to stop thinking of it as a waste and start trying to see it as the learning process--but that's hard to do when I am finally here, and I can't remember what was so hard about it in the first place. Then again, I will have had a few months of this before I get started... maybe I needed it all to happen right now in order for me to be excited enough to carry it with me into the upcoming semester.
What I'm saying is, I just want to BE at the start of Orientation #1. Once I hit the ground running I won't have the time to look back, even if I wanted to--and I definitely don't want to.
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[1] don't worry, I never actually counted on said plan, but it was, you know, there
[2] side effects may include: not knowing who you are anymore; wondering how long it's going to last before you fizzle out; random bouts of ridiculous excitement over the amount of productive I feel in a given day
[3] I'll probably be referencing this post from now until the day I die...
