I've been pretty one-note lately, partly in thanks to my unemployed newlywed best friend. A master's degree under her belt, apparently she is overqualified for every job under the sun. This week, after a miserable few months substitute teaching and sending out stacks of resumes every week, she accepted a job... babysitting. She is so smart, talented, insightful, and has so much promise... and she's doing a 15 year old girl's job.
I, on the other hand, have only a lowly Bachelors of Science (I think....?), and keep jumping over the fence from one side to the other on the "going back to grad school" issue. The underlying problem seems to be that I don't want to do anything. Actually, more likely, it's that I want to do everything. For about 5 minutes. Or maybe a week. Then I get bored, find a flaw, or see something shiny, and toss in the trash the idea that I went all over the universe declaring the news about.
I make cakes... they taste pretty good, and some of them look really cool. I used to do it for fun. Then I turned it into a business. Now it's not fun anymore.
I take pictures. After two semesters of photography in college and an expensive digital camera, I decided I could turn that into a business. Then I started making cakes.
You see my problem? Last month I decided that I want to go to school for psychology and women's studies. I thought, how fulfilling to help girls like me who've been through the ringer and have trouble coping or coming to terms. I know what it's like to feel alone, feel less than, feel like giving up... so why not help other like that? Then I thought of the school... lots of years and money to invest, and what if I hate it on the other end? What if I spend all that money and can't find a job? What if I just get bored?
I can still see myself doing that. The problem is that I don't trust myself. I can't count on the fact that I'll want to do that for more than a couple of months. Sometimes it takes me a while to grow out of my phases, so how can I jump in knowing I'll probably get distracted by a life-changing love of marine biology (which I also wanted to study for 5 minutes) or the desire to become a commercial jet pilot?
The only thing I've wanted to do my whole life is write. In this art, I have the best of everything, and the best parts of myself are utilized. I can create my own worlds, which started because I couldn't bear the one I was living in. I can dream up the perfect characters, which eases my general dislike of a decent part of the human race. I can use words, which, for as long as I can remember, were a beautiful puzzle, a challenge in every moment, to find "le mot juste," the right word. And I can finish it... until now, only short stories have met their "the end," but I have high hopes. Writing bring out the best in me, and makes me feel a sense of worth that I've never felt from anything else.
I thought of going to grad school for writing... I'd be guaranteed to like my classes, produce something, come out a better writer in the end. I worry that It will be a waste of money... after all, no one ever asked Hemingway if he had a master's degree before they turned to page one of The Sun Also Rises. But shouldn't I go back to school for something I know for a fact I'm in love with? I go back and forth about this, too. I really must tame the part of my brain that changes my mind so often. Funny, because I'm semi-normal, but that part of my brain is a bipolar schitzophrenic with manic depression and multiple personalities.
Boyfriend really thinks I can write, bless his heart. He tells me I can "write my ass off." We were watching a movie a few weeks ago and a woman in the movie wrote a book. During a scene in which she is in a bookstore signing copies, he says, "That's gonna be you, babe." It makes all the difference in the world to have someone who believes in you even when you don't believe in yourself. That is, after all, something that people in love do, right? They believe in each other when it seems impossible that their dreams will come true.
Maybe mine will... Just have to stick with it, never give up, follow my dreams, and all that other motivational crap.
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