After the Storm

The past two weeks have been rough. Soul battering rough. I haven’t been writing, haven’t been reading, and haven’t been sleeping. While I know that you do not require explanations of me, I now feel ready to talk about where I have been these last few weeks.

I never choose the easy path. Even as a child, my mother has said that I refused to do any thing, any way except my own way. She tells me that even if she were showing me an easier way to get something done, I would flat out refuse – and choose the harder path. She tells me that one of her lessons as a parent was to watch me, without interfering, struggle through what ever I was experiencing. She concurs that while I always reached my goal, it was with more struggle and pain than perhaps necessary.

As an adult, I am not that different. I continue to choose the difficult path. On one hand, this process has inured me to small obstacles. You disagree with me? Pah! Those small difficulties glance off of my external armor with nary a ding.

However, in developing this external shell, I have unwittingly also developed a resistance to doing things that are Good for me too. The same resistance to any change also flares up when I am doing things that, logically, I know are for the best. I begin to self-sabotage. I cry. I mope. I withdraw.

Thankfully, I have married a man that has learned this pattern of mine and keeps gentle pressure on me, while also allowing me lots of space. Even as he is doing this, I continue to fight him. Generally, when I have exhausted the emotional response, I stand up, brush off and finish the task with spectacular results.

This has been the case the past several weeks. As you may recall, I had submitted my application for my doctoral work in the fall. However, I sent the wrong application into the school. Twice.

*&^%#$^&*(#@#$%^&*$#@#$%^&*(#@#$%^&*(!!!!!!!!!

So, after I had a big cry about that, Terrance and I sat down and started to craft the real doctoral application. His goal was to get it out of me by the end of the year. This meant, of course, that I was going to be wildly interested in ANYTHING but the doctoral application. I am surprised I didn’t take up jogging to get away from him and the cursed application (which ranks up there with the chances of my joining a convent or getting a boob job in the realm of things VERY unlikely I will ever do).

It became a cat and mouse game at my house. I avoided the computer, cause if he saw me sitting there he would pop in and say “Working on your proposal?” to which I would growl and stalk away. Finally, he put the thing on the laptop and followed me around with it.

“Write just one paragraph…Just One, then you can stop”

I would write the crappiest paragraph possible and throw it back at him to proofread and then cry when he told me it wasn’t very good. See that? The self-sabotage? I am a master.

This went on until the Friday before New Year’s, when I had words with my supervisor. She has had an inkling that I am preparing to go on in my education, and rather than this being a joyful move, she tends to get hostile and threatened. This played out in a very passive aggressive exchange with her as I was leaving an unrelated meeting in her office.

My anger with her finally broke the last vestiges of loyalty and fear. I went home that night and wrote the entire proposal. Terrance was stunned. He pronounced it perfect.
It was clear from the last exchange with my supervisor that I have outgrown my space here. Emotionally, and professionally, I am ready for something different.

So, today – For real this time - I am mailing in my application for my doctoral program.