(no subject)
I know, I know -- I'm way behind on the updates. The post below was written on March 3, but I haven't had regular internet access for the past few weeks since I've spent more time in Ajumako than Accra this past month. Things are not quite as miserably dire as they were, but it's still not exactly sunshine and roses. Hopefully it won't take me another month to bring things up to date, but in the meantime -- my state of mind as of two weeks ago:
We are three months shy of the one year anniversary of graduation for the class of 2007. We are Avenue Q - broke? Twenty-three? More than a little confused about purpose in life? Yep. That entire show feels sickeningly appropriate in ways it never did before. Does this make anyone else feel prematurely old and vaguely alarmed?
I think the above statement is pretty telling of my emotional state of late. I have this favorite analogy of life after graduation - the well-lit, clearly marked, well-manicured path leading from kindergarten to commencement suddenly falls off into a swamp, full of unpredictable mists and boggy ground. And it’s not the end of the world, this swamp; it’s not a fatal diversion. It’s just a temporary patch you have to slog through for a bit, and you have to trust that you’ll come out okay (if a bit muddy) on the other end. The problem being, it’s nearly impossible to tell if the path you’re cutting through the swamp is the right/best/safest one - all the mist makes it mighty hard to trust your eyes to guide you. And you can’t trust the ground in a swamp, either, you have to test it and take a few steps before you realize, ohshitohshitbadmove, you’re sinking, and flail away in another direction; and at every misstep, you have to battle the increasingly overwhelming sense that you’re stuck, trapped, wasting your energy. But then every now and again - oh rapture! - the sun breaks through, and the ground is solid, and you think YES! The universe is not quite as miserably tilted as it seemed, I am going to do just fine. Better than fine; stellar.
And then the mist drifts in again, and you lose your footing and your starry-eyed confidence in one muddy squish.
All of which is to explain that I have hit a particularly marshy spot on my trek, and I’m feeling sodden and sore and isolated. The project is in irreversible shambles and getting personal about it - no matter what I do or say, someone is displeased; I’ve been sick and sicker; my living situation is absurd; I don’t have the energy for my own research; my social life is beyond non-existent, everyone I love is thousands of miles away, etcetera, ad finitum, ad nauseum. This sucks, frankly. I know I’m being a big fat whiner, but mein gott! I have to believe fieldwork isn’t always going to be this demoralizing - precisely because this isn’t really fieldwork, it’s development work - or else I would have to question nearly everything about my self-conception for the past 22 years. And frankly, I don’t have the energy for that right now.
Dear fellow Type A Perfectionists,
Do not go into development work.
It will only confirm, on a daily basis, your deeply held suspicion that nothing you do will ever be good enough.
Sincerely Yours,
Neurotic Nora
Things that are bad:
Watching When Harry Met Sally when you are already homesick and lovelorn; losing sleep musing about how the city gets under your skin. (You fall in love with it and it belongs to you and only you, because no one else will ever understand the particular constellation of street corners and layered memories that means New York in your mind. And so you can watch the Arch come into view on the screen, knowing full well that this is an iconic image circulated around the globe, an image that says ‘New York’ to people who will never set foot in the city, or who will only pass through and think they get it - you can watch that same shot and think, Mine. Home. Is that not extraordinary?)
Boys who blink and ask, “Well, is he here?” when I say I have a boyfriend.
A social life cut by three quarters (at least) by wisely eliminating boys who ask, “Well, is he here?”
Passive aggressive hypocrisy in housemates.
Corruption in immigrations officers.
Resenting your job and your coworkers; resenting your own inability to appreciate your luck.
Infections, and intense antibiotics that leave you open to other infections.
Meeting the kid who did get the Fulbright…and the five Billyburg hipsters he brought along to keep him company. Bastard.
Being a would-be linguistic anthropologist who cannot for the life of her determine what it is that she keeps saying to piss people off. (This is unbelievably alarming.)
Being afraid to articulate just what is making you so miserable for fear it will take over.
The deeply inculcated need for instantaneous-gratification-communication instilled in we sorry babes of the internet age, and the shocking disconnect that occurs when are forced to go without hello/goodbye/I love you from thousands of miles away and the distance suddenly becomes thuddingly, dizzyingly real; needing someone, anyone, to share an experience with before it feels real.
Serious self-doubt as a direct result of inability to deal with all of the above.
Things that are good:
Taking long walks and finding hidden pockets of urban cosmopolitanism - Chinese groceries with tapioca pearls (hell yes, homemade bubble tea!), Lebanese cafés with old men smoking hookah and watching bizarre Iranian dinner theater on a flatscreen tv.
Finding the lesbians. (More on that later.)
A sister who polls her coworkers at PC-Boston for assurance and advice for me: you are missing the things you need to be okay in this space; it’s fully legit to be unhappy. You have not failed.
Fanti girls who call just to tell me to stop being so hard on myself (E), or take me to the new seamstress and assure me the new kids are boring if they don’t want to hang with me (L), or ply me with milo and treats to get a smile (B). Oh, my Fanti ladies! What would I do without you?
Being warm; not being nauseous.
Skype, and having important voices in my ears when I need them - like, say, the ol’ daddio at one am after watching When Harry Met Sally and making myself miserable.
Being in love. Trusting it from across the sea. The singularly sustaining drama of mutual escapism.
Pando, and distraction in the form of new music. (Where have Tegan & Sara been all my life?! Call; I’ll be down on the floor hiding out from it all. Pretty much mes dudettes, pretty much. And St. Vincent? Talk about a dreamboat Annie…)
Book clubs. I’m joining one! I’m the only member under 40. Our next book will be, handily enough, Suite Francaise, which I have just finished.
Ravelry, and Bitch magazine. (Thank you, momma!)
Cartomancy as therapy; finding an eight of clubs outside the alleyway. The emphasis is on the necessity of change and the challenge of keeping up with it. With the turning of the seasons we are constantly being forced to deal with change, and there is no remedy but to live with that in mind. So, get busy -- there is no time to waste! Alright, alright already. I get it.
Knowing that no condition is permanent. Everything in life is only for now.
You. All of you.
Thank you for thinking of me and missing me and sending warm gratifying words and news from the home nest, reminding me of how I fit. I needed that badly. It sucks to be us, but not when we’re together. I love you, too.
We are three months shy of the one year anniversary of graduation for the class of 2007. We are Avenue Q - broke? Twenty-three? More than a little confused about purpose in life? Yep. That entire show feels sickeningly appropriate in ways it never did before. Does this make anyone else feel prematurely old and vaguely alarmed?
I think the above statement is pretty telling of my emotional state of late. I have this favorite analogy of life after graduation - the well-lit, clearly marked, well-manicured path leading from kindergarten to commencement suddenly falls off into a swamp, full of unpredictable mists and boggy ground. And it’s not the end of the world, this swamp; it’s not a fatal diversion. It’s just a temporary patch you have to slog through for a bit, and you have to trust that you’ll come out okay (if a bit muddy) on the other end. The problem being, it’s nearly impossible to tell if the path you’re cutting through the swamp is the right/best/safest one - all the mist makes it mighty hard to trust your eyes to guide you. And you can’t trust the ground in a swamp, either, you have to test it and take a few steps before you realize, ohshitohshitbadmove, you’re sinking, and flail away in another direction; and at every misstep, you have to battle the increasingly overwhelming sense that you’re stuck, trapped, wasting your energy. But then every now and again - oh rapture! - the sun breaks through, and the ground is solid, and you think YES! The universe is not quite as miserably tilted as it seemed, I am going to do just fine. Better than fine; stellar.
And then the mist drifts in again, and you lose your footing and your starry-eyed confidence in one muddy squish.
All of which is to explain that I have hit a particularly marshy spot on my trek, and I’m feeling sodden and sore and isolated. The project is in irreversible shambles and getting personal about it - no matter what I do or say, someone is displeased; I’ve been sick and sicker; my living situation is absurd; I don’t have the energy for my own research; my social life is beyond non-existent, everyone I love is thousands of miles away, etcetera, ad finitum, ad nauseum. This sucks, frankly. I know I’m being a big fat whiner, but mein gott! I have to believe fieldwork isn’t always going to be this demoralizing - precisely because this isn’t really fieldwork, it’s development work - or else I would have to question nearly everything about my self-conception for the past 22 years. And frankly, I don’t have the energy for that right now.
Dear fellow Type A Perfectionists,
Do not go into development work.
It will only confirm, on a daily basis, your deeply held suspicion that nothing you do will ever be good enough.
Sincerely Yours,
Neurotic Nora
Things that are bad:
Watching When Harry Met Sally when you are already homesick and lovelorn; losing sleep musing about how the city gets under your skin. (You fall in love with it and it belongs to you and only you, because no one else will ever understand the particular constellation of street corners and layered memories that means New York in your mind. And so you can watch the Arch come into view on the screen, knowing full well that this is an iconic image circulated around the globe, an image that says ‘New York’ to people who will never set foot in the city, or who will only pass through and think they get it - you can watch that same shot and think, Mine. Home. Is that not extraordinary?)
Boys who blink and ask, “Well, is he here?” when I say I have a boyfriend.
A social life cut by three quarters (at least) by wisely eliminating boys who ask, “Well, is he here?”
Passive aggressive hypocrisy in housemates.
Corruption in immigrations officers.
Resenting your job and your coworkers; resenting your own inability to appreciate your luck.
Infections, and intense antibiotics that leave you open to other infections.
Meeting the kid who did get the Fulbright…and the five Billyburg hipsters he brought along to keep him company. Bastard.
Being a would-be linguistic anthropologist who cannot for the life of her determine what it is that she keeps saying to piss people off. (This is unbelievably alarming.)
Being afraid to articulate just what is making you so miserable for fear it will take over.
The deeply inculcated need for instantaneous-gratification-communication instilled in we sorry babes of the internet age, and the shocking disconnect that occurs when are forced to go without hello/goodbye/I love you from thousands of miles away and the distance suddenly becomes thuddingly, dizzyingly real; needing someone, anyone, to share an experience with before it feels real.
Serious self-doubt as a direct result of inability to deal with all of the above.
Things that are good:
Taking long walks and finding hidden pockets of urban cosmopolitanism - Chinese groceries with tapioca pearls (hell yes, homemade bubble tea!), Lebanese cafés with old men smoking hookah and watching bizarre Iranian dinner theater on a flatscreen tv.
Finding the lesbians. (More on that later.)
A sister who polls her coworkers at PC-Boston for assurance and advice for me: you are missing the things you need to be okay in this space; it’s fully legit to be unhappy. You have not failed.
Fanti girls who call just to tell me to stop being so hard on myself (E), or take me to the new seamstress and assure me the new kids are boring if they don’t want to hang with me (L), or ply me with milo and treats to get a smile (B). Oh, my Fanti ladies! What would I do without you?
Being warm; not being nauseous.
Skype, and having important voices in my ears when I need them - like, say, the ol’ daddio at one am after watching When Harry Met Sally and making myself miserable.
Being in love. Trusting it from across the sea. The singularly sustaining drama of mutual escapism.
Pando, and distraction in the form of new music. (Where have Tegan & Sara been all my life?! Call; I’ll be down on the floor hiding out from it all. Pretty much mes dudettes, pretty much. And St. Vincent? Talk about a dreamboat Annie…)
Book clubs. I’m joining one! I’m the only member under 40. Our next book will be, handily enough, Suite Francaise, which I have just finished.
Ravelry, and Bitch magazine. (Thank you, momma!)
Cartomancy as therapy; finding an eight of clubs outside the alleyway. The emphasis is on the necessity of change and the challenge of keeping up with it. With the turning of the seasons we are constantly being forced to deal with change, and there is no remedy but to live with that in mind. So, get busy -- there is no time to waste! Alright, alright already. I get it.
Knowing that no condition is permanent. Everything in life is only for now.
You. All of you.
Thank you for thinking of me and missing me and sending warm gratifying words and news from the home nest, reminding me of how I fit. I needed that badly. It sucks to be us, but not when we’re together. I love you, too.