Beginning, again.

Is this where you thought you would be, almost two years later? Still uncertain--just a different kind. Less adventure, more stability, predictability, staid domesticity--but it's not placid. Sometimes, lately, it's seething. And you want...what. To be doing something that matters, to be writing, again (and this means you're trying, that you never realized how all those years of journals since you were just a kid, all that daily chronicling of the angst and miniature and later, real, trauma, real knock-you-down & build you back up heart break, was good for something). Not something. Less vague, Michelle. Learn to to wield language like a weapon again, like a caress, like a promise, like a vow, like it's everything you are. And you will get back there, but it will take time. Practice, practice.

Be less afraid. Jackie told me that, almost six years ago now. Be less afraid. And I'll have to be, for the story (stories) I want to tell, for the life I want to live, to keep my relationship from going under the wreck. If my--our--history had been different, I would be wearing a ring right now. It was like a sucker punch when he told me, it knocked all the air from my lungs, and then, walking down that Park Slope street, warm evening air, holding hands, any other couple, appear calm, relaxed, not churned and ever so slightly wearying. Last week: "Something was wrong right? No one else noticed, but I'm a writer. I noticed. Marriage, right?"

And Justin, off to England & Chile & California, and who knows where else. Reaping the accolades (deserved, yes) but still hard to read my mother describe me to her friends, after rattling off his many accomplishments, that I'm living with my boyfriend in New York, and she's so thankful I'm starting school in January to be a librarian so I can actually be "marketable and self-sufficient." What happened to the Sarah Lawrence graduate, the Oxford student with a novella under her belt, the girl who helped to launch other writer's careers, who was a freelance journalist, a poet, an editor?

This is what I would have said: I'm learning how to be an adult. I work as a Research Assistant for a job that is boring and mindless at times and not in my field, true, but I do have a job, and one day all the trashiness and the incompetence and the occasional moments of heart will be great writing material. I am a Web Editor for a lauded non-fiction reading series and that in itself is providing with me friends, and a writing community, and networking opportunities. I am applying--again--to be a mentor with Girls Write Now. I could have had a full time writing job in my field but I turned it down because my mother, among other people, has always tried to show me what I am worth. I was worth more than that. I'm a writer and editor for another online publication that allows me the freedom to write (and publish) what and when I choose. I'm starting a competitive Masters program in Library Science in the spring, because, yes, I recognized I needed a pragmatic fallback and I don't want Mike to be the sole income earner forever. For a multitude of reasons, but first and foremost, so that I know I can get by on my own.

That's what I would have said. I'm getting there. It's a process, and I'll be the first to admit I'm rusty--probably rustier than I've ever been. I signed up for a 5K in August with Mike. I've never been a runner either. But I'm learning. One foot in front of the other. Keep going.

"The way to become someone's God is to disappear"--quote from Mona Simpson's The Lost Father, her sequel to Anywhere But Here that I started before I came back to Sarah Lawrence--and consequentially means, now that classes have started, I probably won't finish until Christmas? Hopefully not. I think it's partially true though; that quote. If you're inclined to develop certain kinds of attachments to people. The way, I guess, I'm inclined.

I keep having the same nightmare, substituting different people as the aggressor. Three times in the past week. I don't know the last time I had a restful night of sleep.

I don't know where I want to be right now, exactly, or what I want to be doing. I feel like I'm out of practice at this whole class-homework-existing on a campus grind. It will be fine, because it always is--every year has worked out--but right now, I just feel aimless and anxious all at once. Like I should be doing something to fill the hours now (because soon enough they'll be filled for me) but I don't know what that is. I'm being pro-active, telling Lindsay I'll help her with the literary magazine; accepting that nomination to be on the Senior Gift Committee; hopefully getting that job as a Senior Interviewer. Maybe tutoring through America Reads--I could use the money, to be honest. Just trying to fill time. Time--time and memory--the subject of my Anthropology class. I forgot the vague process of settling on a conference project; the tinglings of creativity that you finally twinge out into something cohesive. Anything creative or artistic always starts out with that feeling for me--the best way I can describe it is like a tickle, totally obscured, that eventually settles into some sort of specificity. I have vague ideas of time and healing, the structure of time in literature; choosing to forget. There are always so many options.

I want it to be autumn, so I can spend my days in tights and dresses and long cardigans; drink chai tea; take long walks. Feel more settled, somehow. Fall has always suited my aesthetic and sensibilities best, I think. I hate the freezing cold, and I hate the heat and humidity of summer. Spring makes me restless. I am too particular. Maybe.

Rachel, when I went into her office last week, told me it was ok that I don't have a plan. That maybe that's better. "You can't possibly fuck it up now, Michelle," she said. "You're too good. You have an excellent resume, you do excellent work. You will get a job. You will be fine. It's ok to play now." But I want to know. I entertained the idea of taking French this year, with the goal being to go back eventually; sometime between the end of the year and grad school. I didn't, but I could always take a summer course. I could always do anything.

I don't even know if I want to be writing.



Edit:

That's funny. I didn't even notice it was three months to the day since I last updated this blog. Three months ago I was in Oxford. It feels far longer; so much has happened in the interim.

A year isn’t just the good things. It’s everything else, too. The early-morning hangovers, tearful confessions, that one-too-many glass of wine. Fighting loneliness, fighting fear, just plain old fighting. The disappointments, the rejections, the fantasies that don’t quite come true. The nights that seem too long, the days you just can’t seem to get it together. All of that makes up the year. The good and the bad. The days you’d want to repeat a million times, and the ones you can’t think about too much because weeks, months later, they still sting. The emergency room visits, the homesick trans-Atlantic phone calls, the “it’s not you but I’m just not ready.” Too much too soon and circumstances out of your control. A year is dancing in the kitchen but breaking down in your best friend’s arms. The nights tangled up in bed with a boy, and the nights you walked home alone. Intertwining your life with these people you come to like and love, then having to say goodbye. A year is all of that. Just moments. Just snapshots. Of the mundane and the novel; the heartbreaking, beautiful, strange, and confusing. That’s all it is. This blog, this year. That’s all.

Other things I will miss: cheap fresh flowers, Marks & Spencer, the insanely late summer sunsets, 2-for-1 Wednesdays, Womcam, college bars, pubs, pub food, Pimms, Magdalen deer park, Oxford house parties, flat raves, Hassans, balls, Blackwell's hot chocolate, the fiction section of the Oxfordshire Public Library, Grand Cafe cocktails, going out multiple nights of the week, cute Brit boys buying me drinks, cute Brit boys, Holywell cemetery, The Vaults & Gardens, being called 'love,' the ivory tower, Oxford eccentricities, Oxford history, easy access to nightclubs, walking everywhere, 'cheers' as 'thank-you,' London, the Bodleian, cobblestone streets, the plethora of tea shops, mild (most of the time) weather.

Things I won't: The exchange rate. Windy, rainy days when an umbrella is useless. Bringing along my passport every time I want to buy a bottle of alcohol. Cornmarket late at night. The insanely early summer sunrises.

It's not quite an even split is it? No, I guess not.

"You only long for a place when you weren't really there to begin with," Linda said today. "When you were either caught up in the past or the future." An interesting, perhaps obvious idea. It makes sense. The places I can conjure at any moment are the ones I know like the back of my hand--Fairfield, the Cape, and Sarah Lawrence. Because I've spent years and years in all three. "Spend the next few weeks just sitting, observing," Linda told me. "Then no matter where you are, you'll always be able to go back."

So much of the last few weeks has become conflated, tied up with anxiety about leaving, inherent self consciousness, whatever it is I'm looking for. Projected onto other people, other things. "You have this fantasy world going," Jeff said last week. "It's because you're a writer." True. Or maybe it's just because I'm me. I guess you remember the good & leave out all the rest. I guess that's the best way to remember--at least this year.

So--what comes to mind at this very moment: first Oxford snowfall, running outside Merifield at midnight, bundled into sweatshirts and boots, everyone as giddy as little kids; Shawshank Redemption at the end of first term, a quiet night at home, Jeff running out to get wine; our first London excursion; the pub crawl during Fresher's Week, just for my inebriated comment to Alex about the exchange rate, and our bonding on the walk home; Halloween ghost tour with Amy; Christmas dinner in Hall; the lowkey days before term picks up, as we all trickle back to the flat. Every bop once we became close with the Brits. Spur of the moment London coffee date/ cute-boy flirty texts all the way through Europe. "You have interesting eyes." Exeter Ball debauchery; Manaka's birthday night at Bridge / piggy back rides down George Street at two in the morning / the night-before-Mayday / Wadstock Nelson-Mandela. And the Nelson Mandela at the end of Hilary term. Actually, pretty much every Nelson Mandela. The day the exchange rate dropped to 1.3 and we all rushed out to buy wine & desserts & things we didn't need. February snowstorms; Girls-only Valentine's day party; wandering around Bath with my best friend. Canterbury hotel rooms with Alex & inside jokes. Fireworks outside my window on Guy Fawkes night; lazy afternoons at Blackwells; Radcliffe Square at night. Twilight with Che; Oxford Autumn/Spring. When Cari came to visit. The fairy-like gardens of Anne Boleyn's home in Kent. Aimless walks with the girls in Summertown.

Lots of things.

Everyone asking last night how it feels to be leaving in a month made for some rather unsettling anxiety dreams. I woke up out of sorts, remembering something about standing in the rain, lamenting the lack of proper tea.

I am trying out a new strategy in regards to all this--denial. Just don't think about it.

Summer Eights was Saturday--an afternoon of Pimms, and boat races, and more Pimms, and basking in the sunshine, and crappy wine, and an ad hoc picnic. Monday was Che's birthday/flat rave, last night was Jonny & Kate's joint birthday party, tomorrow night is Keelan's, the night after that Jesse's goodbye party, the day after that London/Alex's birthday party. I will have been out every night this week except tonight.

"At least you'll have so many people you can crash with if/when you come visit next year," Emily said. This is true/ good to know if I come back with Amy next summer.

I have been mentally compiling lists lately. Of things to do, things I'll miss, things I won't miss at all.

However, what I need to actually be doing right now is writing. So I'm going to go try and do that. Even though I don't want to. I have too much trouble quieting my mind.

Whenever I get restless, or overanxious, I flit my time away on inane things, while secretly desiring to do something wild or impulsive. Like now, for instance. What I should be doing: reading Seamus Heaney before I have to start getting dressed up for the Dean's dinner tonight. Especially since this week's topic is going to be a bitch. Something about how every poem is actually a metaphor for what's going on in Ireland. But my Irish history is rather sorely lacking. At least I think that's what I'm supposed to write about this week. For some reason, I can't quite remember what Ballam said.

I have all this nervous energy & I don't know what to do with myself. Falling into daydreams about the future, about whether or not I'll end up back here. I think the only way I'll be able to leave is if I tell myself that maybe I will. And I'm going to apply to the English MST just to see what happens. Just to keep all my options open.

I'm not sure what I want right now. Drunken exuberant conversations on empty Oxford streets as night finally falls. A sweaty club. To make stupid decisions & not be hurt by them later. I get attached to people quickly. It's always been a virtue & a fault. One I don't know how to go about changing. That's why I can't do random hookups. Most of the time, anyway. I think I have control, but I hardly ever do. Maybe I just like the image. It's enticing, that act. Even if it is just an act. I fall hard. That's why it's been a month & I still care.

I have been listening to Kate Voegele's cover of Hallelujah on repeat. I think I like it better than the Rufus Wainright version, surprisingly. Tomorrow--read all day, go out for Luke's birthday at night. Saturday--watch Wadham in Summer Eights. Sunday--question mark. Work. Yes. Monday--Che's birthday. Tuesday--another birthday/club outing. Etc, etc.

Who wants to give me a crash course in Irish politics? Le sigh.