Listing, Not Listless.

Sometimes I get so angry that I'm still so angry. I cried tonight for the second time today, while lying face down on my pillow that smells of must and shampoo. Two big tears dispersed right into the pillowcase as I allowed myself three or four good sobs.

That's all I get. A sob or two, and then I'm done. My body can't take it. After what was essentially an entire January filled with tears, it's like I've used up my quota for reckless crying, and now have to justify each effort to produce even a minor whimper. And as much as I'd like to blame these tears on betrayal, I'm really just at a point where the exhaustion has set in so much that my mind, when allowed a moment to go blank, immediately hurls itself towards that dark and twisty place where I wasn't good enough.

This is just as much an indictment of myself as anything else. Only I let myself get to that point, and only I am the one who limits the tears. Only I knew what I knew. Only I let it lie.

I've pushed hard over the past few weeks, but not hard enough. I've worked hard over the past few weeks, but not hard enough. There's time, yet, to find my mettle, but it better come quickly and come strong. There's no crying in baseball.

A Short Goodbye

This blog has served its purpose and I am mostly closing up shop. Maybe I will stop by once in a while to say hi; maybe I will simply close my eyes and remember all of the feelings that jumbled out onto this space. Here, I went from tired to torrid and back again, occasionally falling into normalcy. I want to move on from those old collections and start again, building my persona differently this time.

For those of you who know me personally, I will be starting a new blog, which will be less intimate in some ways and intimately personal in others. You can contact me for that information. For those of you who do not know me personally, I wish you all the best in the internet ether. Be well. Cook often.

Help Meee.

Can someone please do my laundry, clean my apartment, and feed me food that is not pizza, Twix, sushi from Whole Foods, or Burrito Box? Please? Pleeeeeeeeeease? I'll love you forever. I promise. Consideration and all.

Left the library at 2am again. Trying to wind down by watching terrible TV. Not working. Just want to be done.

It's just a jump to Stack 6
Put your books on your right
Put your hands on your Mac
And pull your chair in tight
Well it's the hunger pains
That really drive you insane
It's time to outline again!

On Being Sick, or I've Watched 3 Hours of Grey's Anatomy Reruns and a Red Sox Game

It has happened again. Last year, during spring semester finals, the season changed from spring to dead summer abruptly, and I got sick. This always happens to me at the season cusps; my immune system apparently is terrified of change and goes into hyperactive "EVERYTHING IS BAD! REJECT ALL INTRUDERS!" mode upon any sign of 75+ degree weather. Last year, in my Property review session, I had already sneezed twelve times before my professor looked at me and said "um, are you okay?" in front of my 80 person section. "Just fine," I replied, while honking into my 26th tissue of the afternoon.

Yesterday it set in again while I was in the library, working on studying for my Evidence exam. I could feel the snot dripping down my nasal passages and the sinuses behind my eyes starting to swell, and I knew. I just knew. And the worst part is that there is absolutely nothing I can do except drug up, live through it, and invest in Kleenex. Today I went to my internship, came home, and tried to work, but the words got all dizzy on the page. So, you know, I was forced into watching Grey's Anatomy reruns and then the Red Sox game. Absolutely forced. I didn't want to do it. Really.

Anyway, now that the Sox won 17-8 and Denny's LVAD wire is cut, I should probably get back to learning the rules of Evidence. Time for some more Airborne.

Law School Therapy

"Okay I will remind you of something funny you did: when X and I were about to leave (maybe around 2?) you were like 'I know what you guys are gonna do, you guys are gonna go home and have sex!' Hahaha, I just started laughing thinking about that. It was true, obviously, but not at all what I was expecting you to say. Amazing."

I have the best group of law school friends from my 1L section that ever existed. Our email chains routinely exceed 100 items and get knocked into second threads, and we often have multiples going on at one time. Each has its own nuanced style as we go through the rhythms of our day, ebbing and flowing with bedtimes and awake times, busy times and free times. We discuss annoying professors, evaluate Etsy purchases and share details about our sex lives. And I cannot emphasize how important that last point is: having girlfriends who actually talk about sex is a very new thing for me. Because of that, I have become more comfortable, more open and more bold. With these friends, it just feels right.

I've always had an easy time making friends. I'm chatty, personable, non-threatening and mostly innocuous at first meeting. It's a skill I'm very proud of, and it's nice to know that I can still rely on it when necessary.

Circular.

Today I had a dark and twisty kind of day, as pregnancy and engagement news filed in from various corners of friends and acquaintances. I'll be the first to tell you that I do not want to be married right now, nor pregnant, nor would I like to be responsible for a fish, let alone a child. I'm in law school. I don't have a life, and I admire those who have children, work full-time, and then come to school at night. (I met one woman the other day who does exactly this and I just wanted to give her a hug and offer to carry her backpack around for her - she must be exhausted.) I have no desire to be responsible for anyone other than myself at the moment.

But that doesn't mean that I won't occasionally look at where I am in life and wonder at how different it is than what I had, at various times, hoped and dreamed it would be. I'm not married, I don't live in Brookline in the good school district, I'm not a year away from having my first child, and I don't work in book publishing (nor am I in Cantorial School.) But at one point in my life, that was exactly my end goal. I told myself I wanted to start having children by age 30 because my mother hadn't started until 34 and she had always seemed so old compared to the other mothers. (In some cases that was true, as one friend's mother was 14 years younger than mine. In other cases my mother just appeared to be so much older than everyone else because that's just the way she is. I have to imagine that as a child, in some respects, she must have been 16 going on 60.) In reality, I'll turn 30 three months before I graduate next year, and certainly beginning a career is the exact wrong time in which to begin planning a family.

Aren't I allowed to mourn this in some respect? I don't live in the burbs (nor do I want to) and I don't drive a car (ditto) but aren't I allowed to mourn the person who I was who wanted those things at the time she thought would be just perfect for her? I'm not necessarily sad that I don't have those things, but maybe more sad that the ideas I had for myself then were so short-sighted.

I would have never imagined myself going to law school. I'm sad for the version of me who existed then who never believed in herself enough to imagine something as big as that.

On the Move

This weekend, I'll be heading home for a bit - partially to celebrate my mother's birthday, partially to work an event in Boston on Saturday night. I get to be in charge, which is yay, but have to cat-herd, which is ew. It's always fun, however, when people come up to you and say "oh my G-d, are you X person? It is SO COOL to meet you!" And then I feel awesome even though the event I'm working, to many, is really really lame.

Then, next weekend, it's off to California to see The Magician. I'm thankful for Virgin Air's fare sales and donated frequent flyer miles from my parents. I wouldn't be able to do this otherwise. I hate the distance and I hate the waiting and I hate the fact that the fucking Concorde doesn't exist anymore. Going back and forth is exhausting, and I'm ready for it to be summer again.

All this moving makes me clean less and need more. I need more from my life, I need more effort of my own, and I really need to start getting some shit done this semester. Argh. Self, consider this your kick in the ass.