The Plan vs. Reality

I came all the way to school (a whopping three miles) to do my work, because I wanted to be productive and I'm not working. In truth, I feel like crap. I was supposed to go to a museum with my sister and instead I have to work. I wanted to meet with two of my professors, but they weren't in their offices. I really need to make this chart, but I have to finish the categorization first. More than anything else, I want to curl up at someone else's place and just lay there and watch television or a movie. Cuddling during this fantasized scene would be ideal.

Instead, I am going to finish typing this and then work on the categorization until I finish. After that, I am going to make the stupid chart and try to stop by and see at least one of my professors. I'm going to email the powerpoint chart I made last week with the appropriate corrections and then finish the recommendation letter I started for a former student. I'm going to be productive. I'm going to get stuff done. And then maybe I'll feel better.

I'm not really all that optimistic about that. Love always, ~Heather

Cliff-Diving

Ugh to the missing-oh.

This is me, sitting on a big purple chair, wishing there were some way to explain this yucky feeling inside me.

This is me, typing away to people who may not even know me.

This is me, wishing that somehow my work here will fill the empty void I feel inside myself.

My theme of the month is that "I am unrejectable." In theory, this theme is quite good, because it really empowers me to feel good about myself. The only hitch is, you can't really claim to be something you have no control over. In fact, being unrejectable puts me in the curious and precarious situation of not actually putting myself out there with any of my ideas (because if someone were to reject me, my theme would be destroyed).

I dream that someday I won't have to think this way anymore and that I'll be able to read my journal without coming across some angst-y passage. But the only euphoric entries are the fantasies, and no one can truly live in a dream world.

I'm a firm believer in keeping my two feet on the ground (literally and metaphorically). Why is it that I am consistently striding out to the edge of cliffs and dangling myself near the edges - tempting myself to jump? Because even when I don't jump, I usually fall.

This time, it was an unusually large drop. It hurt to hit the ground. Worse yet, it feels like I was made of rubber and keep bouncing along falling repeatedly, but not knocking any sense into myself. For the brief moments my feet are on the ground, I am stable and strong. Then physics takes over and the excess energy bounds me off into the land of repeated pain.

The good news is, that a ball never bounces as high the second time. The fall will be shorter and shorter, the bouncing less and less fierce. The time on the ground will grow longer, until I am solidly there. I have the funny feeling that I'll be leading myself to another cliff though - like a slinky on a staircase, aching to let gravity take control.

I like the idea of being grounded, I do. But I keep thinking to myself that one time - just one time - when I hang out by that cliff I will fall and be caught or fall and learn to fly. As much as it sucks to keep hitting the ground, is it worth it to not jump the time when someone is really there or the wind is just right?

Wouldn't it be marvelous to fly?

I hope being caught will be equally marvelous. And I hope that one day, it happens to me.

[Sidenote, completely ruining my poetic flow there - a NYTimes article recently said that 51% of American women aren't married. That doesn't really play in my favor.]

Bedtime. Love always, ~Heather