down

It just hit me today. This...down-ness, this depression. Not a good weekend to hit since I have two very important papers to finish--the first draft of a book chapter that I'm writing (and that, hopefully, will be published someday if the editors can find a publisher) and a close-to-final draft of my second attempt at the portfolio exam for my PhD program. I worked on them for about five or six hours today, but I'm feeling physically and emotionally crappy. I know; not the most artistic choice of words, but it works.

I miss my family and friends. I miss my fiance most of all. I miss being home, and I miss being able to be a part of my family members' and friends' and fiance's lives. I miss the trees. I miss all types of landscape besides flat, empty fields.

I don't like the pressure of grad school, and I don't like the fear that builds up inside me and tells me that I won't make it, that I can't make it, that I'm just faking it and they'll find out and I'm not cut out for this and what was I thinking? I don't like the politics and the falling-apartness that is my school right now. And although people who know what they're doing tell me that, despite my fears, I am good enough and I can make it and I will make it, I am even afraid to believe them because I'm not sure anymore that I even want this. Right now I just wish I was home, planning my wedding, getting married, and starting a family. Who cares what I do for work? But I do care, despite my fears. It's just taking a lot out of me to get there.

The problem with being (or wanting to be) an academic in an English, or perhaps soon-to-be just Rhetoric and Professional Communication/Linguistics department is that you have to have a clear head and you have to be able to concentrate because you have to be able to write. And when your head isn't clear, when you can't concentrate, when you're down, it's hard to be able to do your job. And that's my problem now. The fear is blocking me, the physical ickyness is blocking me, the down-ness is blocking me. I need an unblocking very quickly, because I have deadlines. So if you read this and you pray, please pray for me. I'm going to bed soon and getting up early, and hopefully I'll be able to work in the morning.

I'll leave you with the lyrics to one of my favorite songs from Les Miserables, one that's playing on my iTunes right now (just by chance): On My Own. But before that, I do need to say that I do have things to be thankful for: the opportunity to be here, which so many people don't get; all of the people that love and miss me too; and the fact that, although I am several hundred miles away from my heart, I'm not really on my own.

And now I’m all alone again
Nowhere to turn, no one to go to.
Without a home, without a friend
without a face to say hello to
But now the night is near
And I can make-believe he’s here

Sometimes I walk alone at night
When everybody else is sleeping
I think of him and then I’m happy
With the company I’m keeping
The city goes to bed
And I can live inside my head

On my own
Pretending he’s beside me
All aloneI walk with him ’til morning
Without him, I feel his arms around me
And when I lose my way, I close my eyes and he has found me

In the rain
The pavement shines like silver
All the lights are misty in the river
In the darkness, the trees are full of starlight
And all I see is him and me forever and forever

And I know it’s only in my mind
That I’m talking to myself and not to him
And although I know that he is blind
Still I say there’s a way for us

I love him
But when the night is over
He is gone
The river’s just a river
Without him, the world around me changes
The trees are bare and everywhere the streets are full of strangers

I love him
But every day I’m lonely
All my life I’ve only been pretending
Without me, his world will go on turning
The world is full of happiness that I have never known

I love him
I love him
I love him…
But only on my own