Of sabbaticals and tablespoons
Little breakthrough today.
My therapist noted that if someone is your heart (mi corazon), you can't live without them. Most likely why the fight went right out of me. Makes me very scared to do that again. And yet, when it was good, it was the happiest five years of my life. It has left me quite afraid of love, and still not completely trusting myself. I want to love like that again, with my whole heart. I also want to stay awake and not let someone confuse me like that again, too. That kind of confusion is the product of either 1) the significant other is mentally ill, or 2) it's an intentional mindfuck.
I'm coming into a very interesting part of my life for the next year or so. I'm finished with Chair this summer, then I'm up for full professor, and then I go on sabbatical. No, I don't know what I'm doing yet.
But then, I'm free. And unlike many people, I am really looking forward to that. It feels like I am putting down an old life and creating something new. I literally get to do only those things that are important to me now. It feels like I can be in a better situation financially by then as well. I'm kind of looking forward to 50 at this point.
And I can't be more grateful for how my life has changed in the last two years. Especially because I stopped running from the pain and let it catch up with me. Hurt like the blazes, but it hurts a lot less now.
When I was a little girl, I used to try to dig my way out of my mother's property with a tablespoon. I asked my dad how far I would have to dig, and he said he thought a person owned their property all the way to the middle of the earth. This did not discourage me. I have been playing "escape" my whole life. Except for when I have been deadly serious about it. It is still escape. And in some ways, I have nearly grown out of what I have been doing in my career for many years. It feels good, not scary. It feels free. I dug that hole deep enough that I had to carve steps in it to get out. It was deeper than I was tall.
And sometimes, I convince myself that there is no escape, like I did in grad school, and like I did with Flufffy. And then I want to die, because that is still an escape. But at some point, when it gets that bad, I always seems to find a little fight in me. And just when I was getting ready to beat myself up about that, my therapist reminded me that somewhere deep inside, there was still a part of me that decided to quit. I tried to quit graduate school, because it was what it took to stay alive. And indeed, I decided to quit Flufffy, because it was what it took to stay alive. Or at least to stop throwing up.
I would like to not get trapped in the first place. And I'm working on that. But until then, I can rest a bit easier knowing there is a little girl inside of me, gripping a tablespoon in her hand, who is determined to dig right out the other side of the planet if need be. Sometimes, it is just nice to have a choice, to know your options. Because staying, like leaving, is always a choice. We just don't always know it.
My therapist noted that if someone is your heart (mi corazon), you can't live without them. Most likely why the fight went right out of me. Makes me very scared to do that again. And yet, when it was good, it was the happiest five years of my life. It has left me quite afraid of love, and still not completely trusting myself. I want to love like that again, with my whole heart. I also want to stay awake and not let someone confuse me like that again, too. That kind of confusion is the product of either 1) the significant other is mentally ill, or 2) it's an intentional mindfuck.
I'm coming into a very interesting part of my life for the next year or so. I'm finished with Chair this summer, then I'm up for full professor, and then I go on sabbatical. No, I don't know what I'm doing yet.
But then, I'm free. And unlike many people, I am really looking forward to that. It feels like I am putting down an old life and creating something new. I literally get to do only those things that are important to me now. It feels like I can be in a better situation financially by then as well. I'm kind of looking forward to 50 at this point.
And I can't be more grateful for how my life has changed in the last two years. Especially because I stopped running from the pain and let it catch up with me. Hurt like the blazes, but it hurts a lot less now.
When I was a little girl, I used to try to dig my way out of my mother's property with a tablespoon. I asked my dad how far I would have to dig, and he said he thought a person owned their property all the way to the middle of the earth. This did not discourage me. I have been playing "escape" my whole life. Except for when I have been deadly serious about it. It is still escape. And in some ways, I have nearly grown out of what I have been doing in my career for many years. It feels good, not scary. It feels free. I dug that hole deep enough that I had to carve steps in it to get out. It was deeper than I was tall.
And sometimes, I convince myself that there is no escape, like I did in grad school, and like I did with Flufffy. And then I want to die, because that is still an escape. But at some point, when it gets that bad, I always seems to find a little fight in me. And just when I was getting ready to beat myself up about that, my therapist reminded me that somewhere deep inside, there was still a part of me that decided to quit. I tried to quit graduate school, because it was what it took to stay alive. And indeed, I decided to quit Flufffy, because it was what it took to stay alive. Or at least to stop throwing up.
I would like to not get trapped in the first place. And I'm working on that. But until then, I can rest a bit easier knowing there is a little girl inside of me, gripping a tablespoon in her hand, who is determined to dig right out the other side of the planet if need be. Sometimes, it is just nice to have a choice, to know your options. Because staying, like leaving, is always a choice. We just don't always know it.