Up In Smoke

Until today, I had these illusions of grandeur: going off to grad school at UGA (with an assistantship, of course, since I’m dirt poor), being close enough so that I could still see Brian a few times a week, getting away from the fam (but not so far that they felt abandoned and wanted to visit me), etc, etc. All that was shot down with a simple email from the Comp Lit department at UGA: “We do not grant teaching assistantships to incoming graduate students”. This, then, is my response to UGA: “Screw you”. Now, armed with the knowledge that the university in my own state won’t do me any favors, I have to cross my fingers in hope that those in other states have smaller sticks up their asses. Visions of a future stuck working as a bank teller, clad in ugly shoes and cardigans made up of muted tones of brown and beige, now fill my mind. The possibility that the only Masters’ degree I might afford would be an MBA makes me want to cry. And I’m sure there are business majors out there who would love being a teller; I only wish I was that easily pleased. So, UGA, you have gone from top of my list to bottom. There’s no way I can pay good money for a degree from a mediocre school. When I’m an exceptional professor somewhere, I hope you remember this moment and regret your decision not to give me a scholarship as much as I regret paying your application fee.

Fruit, Nature and Happiness

Man is a mystery. It needs to be unraveled, and if you spend your whole life unraveling it, don’t say that you’ve wasted time. I am studying that mystery because I want to be a human being. -Dostoevsky

Today I finished this book that my friend Katharine gave me for Christmas. It didn’t actually take me six weeks to read it, but I was putting it off because I wasn’t sure it would be any good. Its called Cold Tangerines, the cover is bright orange, and Katharine was really excited about it. Honestly, I think that’s the real reason I was less than thrilled about the thing. She and I never, ever agree on books. She’s Ted Dekker and I’m F. Scott Fitzgerald. In fact, in the entire time I’ve known her, I think the only books we’ve agreed on is Blue Like Jazz, and only because its just so amazingly wonderful. Katharine, if you’re reading this (and I’m betting you’re not), I was wrong. Oh so wrong. Cold Tangerines is Blue Like Jazz from a girl’s P.O.V., and I want to read it three times over.

Yesterday, the boy and I went to Fort Yargo State Park and just walked through trails in the woods for hours. We must have walked three or four miles and gotten lost half a dozen times. B and I had a really rough couple of days, nothing I want to go into, but suffice it to say that we cried a lot. Things are a lot better now, but for a few days there I thought it was all going to fall apart and I couldn’t understand why that would happen. See, I know in my heart that he’s the guy I’m supposed to be with, and even the thought of something breaking us up felt horrible and wrong. The woods are forgiving, they muffle, calm, and put into perspective most any problem you throw at them. Yesterday was no different. When we left we were both exhausted, but so much happier and calmer than we had been in days. I know now that we’re going to be okay. It’s going to be hard, probably harder than anything I’ve ever attempted, but I also know that it’s going to be worth it.

I’m mentioning all of this because this is the first time in weeks that I have felt alive. I spent most of January mourning. Mourning the fact that I’m no longer in school, that I have to bust my ass to get back into school, that I’m no longer employed, that I have to bust my ass to get another job, that I live in a place where I’m less than happy, and struggling with the fear that I won’t be able to pay my bills. The bad news is that none of that has changed. Yet. The good news is that it will, and that I now believe that. So, B, thank you too. For putting up with me, for not giving up on me, for not leaving me, and for never failing to remind me that all of this is temporary (and most of it’s in my head…lol). I love you.

Light. (Emily, not Juliet).

There’s a certain slant of light,
On winter afternoons
That oppresses, like the weight
Of cathedral tunes.

Heavenly hurt it gives us;
We can find no scar,
But internal difference
Where the meanings, are.

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

Emily Dickinson