In the Meantime I Lost Myself
I have come to the conclusion that after this school year is over I will try to leave Wyoming for good, even though it will be hard to find a place where my credits will transfer with less than half a degree earned. This place is just far too close-minded. As a young woman I am a second-class citizen. I am from a long line of women that held themselves equal to (and in many cases above, though I disagree with this) men in general. It is hard to have to fight constant ageism and sexism.
I have no solace in the college; I work and have so many night classes that I feel like I am missing out entirely on anything that is not weighty. I feel like I am not allowed to have fun, that I am not allowed respite from endless responsibility. This life has been reduced to many dangling carrots.
There was much talk of getting an art club going, the first the college has had in five years. Us students rallied, came up with ideas to earn the club money (the equestrian and FFA clubs get the lion's share of funding while the fine arts are left with nil,) and of events that we could arrange. Then the students decided to meet on Tuesdays, the one night a week that I cannot go to any event. My day lasts from 8AM through school, work until 5PM, then to class at 6:30 until 9:30. I have two and a half hours within that block to eat lunch and dinner, a thirteen and a half hour day. So, there is yet another thing that I cannot be a part of. Drawing classes with nude models, film events... Something grand and wonderful put before me and taken away again. The horrible part was that I wasn't even surprised to learn that I could not attend. Sarah said I got very pale and just said "of course..." in a distant, awful voice.
My only other option is to put myself tens of thousands of dollars in debt and to not work at all, so I have time for the hundreds of hours a month that studio art requires. I need to make a portfolio, and I cannot do this living two separate 9 to 5 schedules. At most I have a handful of sketchbooks. Debt terrifies me, but I cannot live like this.
I am denied the joy of being young.