Musings
Ever get to a point where you just no longer understand your life? Or anything in it? I'm balancing there right now. I know what I'm doing but I'm not sure why I'm doing it. I don't want to be a professor but I'm in a field that is directed towards teaching at the collegiate level. I want to be a mom and teach out of my home. I want to do research and perform at festivals. I don't want to be stuck in a routine every single day. I feel like I'm going the wrong way. Should I have gotten out at the stop before this one? And yet this seems to be so right. So perfect. Exactly what I should be doing. Except that then people ask about what I'm going to do with my degree. Which is really just pseudo-speak for asking what I'm going to do with my life. Which is such a hard question to answer. I'm not understanding myself anymore. I'm not even sure I like me very much right now. This stupid adjustment is really being stubborn and difficult. I wish I hadn't left Baylor. I miss all of my friends there. Like tonight, I'm going to sit on my couch and watch tv and do homework when what I really want to do is drive to Waco for the Swing Dance Society meeting tonight. Because I'd see my friends and life would be good again. Except that I'm confused there too. But I don't want to get in to that right now.
I'm definitely going to stick it out at Rice. And I know that I'm making more acquaintances every day but it's not the same as the friends that I had back at Baylor. Take my bible study as an example, here it's a great group of young women, mostly professionals, who are studying through a book on John Wesley. Which is great, but, there's this dogmatic attitude about what we're reading that I don't understand. I know I'm attending a Methodist study group, and a Methodist church for that matter, but I miss the Reformed parts of my doctrinal beliefs. I miss talking with the members of our prayer/bible study groups that were in RUF, or at Antioch, or whatever. I miss the merging of our beliefs with the solid knowledge that we were ok with each other and nothing else actually mattered. I see pictures of church retreats and I ache to be able to go to something like that. How did I miss that at Baylor? I miss it more now at Rice. I miss it not mattering if my beliefs were exactly the same as someone else's. While at the same time I miss having my views line up more with my friends.
I could seriously use a big hug right now. Alas, I don't even have anyone to hug here. Sometimes growing up is really hard. Sometimes I don't like it very much. And now is one of those times. I thought I could handle being at Rice, not like it's that far away, but I feel like I'm not as bright as the other students here or that I don't have as much to offer as they do. What do I do with the fact that I don't want to go make a good name for Rice by becoming a professor? What do I do with the knowledge that if the opportunity came for me to get married I'd do it without worrying about getting a PhD? I guess I continue on. This is the path that has been laid before me and so I will walk it. I just wish I could have brought some friends along for the ride.
I'm definitely going to stick it out at Rice. And I know that I'm making more acquaintances every day but it's not the same as the friends that I had back at Baylor. Take my bible study as an example, here it's a great group of young women, mostly professionals, who are studying through a book on John Wesley. Which is great, but, there's this dogmatic attitude about what we're reading that I don't understand. I know I'm attending a Methodist study group, and a Methodist church for that matter, but I miss the Reformed parts of my doctrinal beliefs. I miss talking with the members of our prayer/bible study groups that were in RUF, or at Antioch, or whatever. I miss the merging of our beliefs with the solid knowledge that we were ok with each other and nothing else actually mattered. I see pictures of church retreats and I ache to be able to go to something like that. How did I miss that at Baylor? I miss it more now at Rice. I miss it not mattering if my beliefs were exactly the same as someone else's. While at the same time I miss having my views line up more with my friends.
I could seriously use a big hug right now. Alas, I don't even have anyone to hug here. Sometimes growing up is really hard. Sometimes I don't like it very much. And now is one of those times. I thought I could handle being at Rice, not like it's that far away, but I feel like I'm not as bright as the other students here or that I don't have as much to offer as they do. What do I do with the fact that I don't want to go make a good name for Rice by becoming a professor? What do I do with the knowledge that if the opportunity came for me to get married I'd do it without worrying about getting a PhD? I guess I continue on. This is the path that has been laid before me and so I will walk it. I just wish I could have brought some friends along for the ride.