Worthiness
So I went to my therapist today. -resists urge to be defensive-
I'm finishing up grad school. In violin performance. Which I realized was a mistake the first semester, but have persevered to the end anyway. The problem? I didn't read the fucking manual. You know, the graduation requirements? So I have been caught flatfooted by the perfectly natural requirement of turning in all my syllabi and "major assignments": papers and exams from the previous two years. I have most of my syllabi and other papers, but exams? I take great joy in throwing those out at the end of the semester, people.
This, naturally, is causing me some stress. I'll be revealing this minor/major problem to my teacher tomorrow. Wish me luck.
After discussing this, and a few other topics, with my poor beleaguered therapist (I've been on high alert for the past three or four weeks now. My recital, now all done, was stressful) I mentioned that this seems to be a cyclical pattern for me: I stumble through one requirement only to encounter another that I'm poorly prepared for. Naturally, the question becomes "Why am I doing this to myself?" I can, and have been perfectly prepared for assignments (and graduation) in other situations, but I seem to choose this sharp-edged life of frantic worry and preparation and barely scraping by.
And it came to me, eating my lunch in my car right before class (another example of a certain lack of pre-planning).
I want it to be hard.
Seriously, I aced my first semester of undergrad. I went to bed on time, I did everything the professor told me to, on time. I was lonely, but that's another issue. I got straight A's, and felt like I didn't deserve them because it was too easy.
I'm smart, not quite genius level, but up there. I test well. I can pass an exam with one day's preparation. Public college isn't challenging enough for me. The most fulfilling semester of college I had? Was when I summarily decided to declare computer science as my major, and took Pre-Calc, Chemistry (with a lab), and Intro to Programming in one semester. It was hard. I worked hard. I got A's, mostly. It was satisfying.
Music, though? Easy, if you put in the time. That was great at TU, where everything else was hard. At my current college? Music is all I'm doing.
So I don't do the work. I haven't put in the time. I've made it hard on myself. Not quite the kind of hard I want or need, really. It's damn stressful, always being behind. It's a knife's edge. The clarity of focus when you know you might fail without it is amazing. I wish I could get that kind of focus when I prepare things well in advance. That kind of work? Feels soft-focus, easier, if not easy. It takes time, yeah, but it's eminently doable. I'm not challenged. I wish I could find that line, the one where the work is hard enough that I know I'll have to give myself time to prepare. I felt much more challenged at TU. The level of expectation, if not teaching, was much greater. I miss it.
I wish I had realized this my first semester (I did, actually. I just didn't see it as a large problem, or as affecting my behavior quite so much). Sometimes I feel so effing blind, stumbling around, doing stuff without examining my motives, or, if I do, not being able to find them.
ETA Friday: Just went through my portfolio and all the stuff I had lying around, hard copy and computer files. It's not as bad as I feared. Two classes missing all my exam stuff, but everything else has at least quizzes and midterms and papers I wrote. Sent my teacher a summary/apology. (And one class missing a syllabus, which I've known about for a while, so no biggie.) It's really nice to know for sure how screwed I am, which is maybe not very much? I've had this recurring problem for a while: procrastinate and let my fears of the worst control me/indulge in hope in the uncertainty, or know the worst (it is, 90% of the time, not as bad as I think) and feel better in knowing for sure. I seem to choose the first, though I eventually get to the second.