The wherefores

As time ticks down toward my departure date (predicated, of course, upon receipt of visa...application made, decision as yet unknown), I have plenty of time to think about why the hell I have chosen to do this. I know how it started...when a favorite professor approaches you in the middle of a boring work week and says "You know, you could probably be a candidate for a Rhodes scholarship," well, I'd like to meet the person who could resist that amount of flattery. As it turned out, however, I was demonstrably not a good candidate for any of the prestigious dog shows in which I entered myself, and was left in what was really the worst of all scenarios: accepted to two amazing schools, with absolutely no way to pay for either of them.

This makes me think that in almost all cases, total rejection must be better than partial. Think about it in terms of relationships...the closure of the total rejection...versus the agony of the lingering emotions and possibilities. There's a reason that being "off the hook" (outside of the world of hip-hop, which is where I fear I will always remain, and anyway I might be confusing "off the hook" with "off the chain" which really just proves my tertiary point here) is a good thing. Who ever wants to be on the hook?

Anyway, I was on the hook. On the hook for approximately 24,000 GBP. Let me tell you, that namby-pamby British reputation folds a bit once you get a look at their brawny currency exchange rate. Imperialism, indeed.

So I had six months to make a choice: stay here in the states, working in jobs that I don't despise so much as they make me despise myself, feeling gradually less and less of a valuable human being, or go back to school, to become literally less valuable in terms of my personal available funds and my potential measurable contribution to society, but get to inflate my own sense of intellectual self-worth.

In a move that would probably surprise people, I've decided (that alone might surprise people...but who are these "people" whom I feel know me and predict me so well? All of those people are gone) to take a chance.

Here's the way I see it: the next year of my life will probably determine the direction of at least the next five. With that kind of exponential effect, maybe it makes sense to invest such an enormous outlay (the amount of money I would spend in a year, times five), such an emotional wrench (all of the friends who have moved away in the last year, times losing everyone I know in the course of one plane ride...p.s., we are now using discrete math), such a ridiculous arcane topic (the unimportance of history times the fact that I plan to study the history of philosophical interpretations of history, circa the 18th century)...

I've lost the gist of that sentence. Situations like this make me worry about the current state of my brain, and it's ability to keep up in academic circles. I'm concerned I'll look like a draft horse laboring around Pimlico.

And yet, when I read books about the topic I've chosen to study, I realize just how unhappy I've been with the last two years, and what an opportunity for renewed satisfaction with myself that this next year represents. I have always identified myself, first and foremost, as a brain, and my sense of worth is (probably) inextricably tied to my academic and intellectual achievements, which is why I try very hard to avoid thinking about grade inflation, which would essentially invalidate my entire existence. So when I graduated and lost the opportunity to think on a daily basis, when I realized that my insufficient employment experiences, combined with a terrible economy and gutted job market, would deprive me of any hope of a "good" job in which I feel some level of pride, I was gone, lost.

Over the last two years, I have felt constantly as though I have been slipping away. I feel like a shade. Even people who don't know me seemed to recognize it—in the jobs I have had, I quickly become known as the quiet one, the one who flies under the radar, content to do her work without leaving a ripple in her wake. I have never been that person. But I am now. I am quiet now, because I find myself with nothing of value to say. And I'm literally fading, as my lack of self manifests in an inability to feed myself. I just don't have the energy to eat, and it's easier to be hungry than to chew. I realized the other day, reaching up to touch my back, that I have never felt "the buttons" of my spine before.

I'm being dramatic.

But the point remains that I'm unhappy now, and that great tradition of returning to school when nothing else is going right feels like a pretty good option now. As for why Scotland...who knows? Maybe it's Outlander's fault. I certainly wouldn't spit in the face of a Jamie right now, and if I did he'd probably kiss me for it. Sounds nice.

So it comes to this...I am going back to school with the ostensible goal of pursuing my doctorate and becoming a professor of history, but really for the more immediate goal of no longer feeling like a waste, in all senses, of a person.

Here's hoping.