Confessions

Wow, it’s been such a long time since I’ve written anything let alone an entry on here.  No journaling, no faux attempts of working on my “manuscript,” no blogging, not even the start of something that I’ll never finish, but begin with full intentions of posting, submitting, doing something amazing with.  I can’t say that I’ve had writers block – that would insinuate that at some point I tried to write, but couldn’t.  I haven’t even tried, unless you count work.  Wow, the mere fact that I just wrote that sentence implies that I actually tried to justify work writing as creative writing.  That’s really just sad. 

Recently, someone asked me why a Marine with a MFA in writing was doing logistics for the DoD.  I replied, “paying the bills.”  Really that’s what I’m doing.  It’s not the work that bothers me and it’s certainly not the people I work for that’s bothering me.  It’s one of the best DoD contract companies to work for and for the first time in my working life I can say I like, respect and enjoy working for my supervisor and coworkers (and no I’m not just writing this because someone from work might read this.  I really do mean it – great company and great people).   What is it?  What the hell is bothering me?  Well, on the list of a thousand reasons a writer writes there is a bullet point with “to figure things out” written next to it.  So, hopefully I can figure it out and if not hopefully someone out there who is wiser than me can fill me in on the secrets of life. 

What the fuck am I doing?  I asked myself this after finishing undergrad as I moved to New York, New York.  I think I've asked myself the same question 14,418,534,600,000 (the national debt at the time I wrote this).  When I moved to NYC I didn't really have any plans  except living the poor poet’s existence that I had sung along to with Rent so many times.  I would get there and live the romanticized life of a writer with a family of poor, creative friends living off their art instead of money, food or water.  I was enrolled in a graduate summer course at NYU for book/magazine publishing because I was sure that was the best way to launch my writing career.  After sitting through seminars and talking to book editors and freelance magazine writers I realized I don’t read magazines and I never finish any of the books I start reading so really what could I contribute to this field?  I spent the first month so homesick I was physically ill at night and after class willed myself to sleep 10+ hours.  Sleep has always been my way of coping with transitions.  The first month I lived in Aberdeen, Scotland I was homesick and lost and slept as soon as I got home after class just to pass the time for the first month as well.  No matter how many times I sleep away the strangeness of a transition period, I never seem to realize that in the blink of an eye the adventure will be ending with sleepless nights that I hope will never end.  Some people just never learn.

I stayed in New York after the class was over.  I applied to clothing stores and lit agencies, but my heart wasn’t in it.  I knew it wasn’t what I was supposed to be doing with my life.  Every time I went in for an interview I had that sinking feeling in the bottom of your gut like when you know you’re walking down the wrong street of a foreign city, but you keep going so you don’t have to admit you’re lost.  As soon as I'd leave the interview I'd exhale and like when you finally admit to yourself you're lost, I'd get that feeling like you swallowed the dog piece from the Monopoly set.  I couldn't find a job, but I don't think I'd hire me either.  So, I did what any self pitying college graduate would do.  I moved back home and decided I was going to be a Marine. 

I remember the exact moment when I knew this was my fate.  I met with the officer recruiter and had all the information I  needed to make my decision.  Before driving back home I stopped by the coffee shop, MT Cup, on Ball State’s campus.  I wrote in my Lord of the Rings themed journal, “I’m going to be a fucking Marine if it kills me.”  I so badly wanted this to be what I was meant to do in the world that I trained nonstop for six months straight.  I was so physically fit that after the first work out at Officer Candidate School (OCS) I was disappointed that it was so easy.  Every morning I ran three miles as fast as I could down empty, gravel roads, only to have to turn around and run back at a more moderate pace.  I decided I wasn’t going to OCS until I got a perfect Physical Fitness Test (PFT) which required a 70 second flex arm hang, 100 crunches in 2 minutes and 3 miles under 21 minutes (for women, 18 for men).  The first time I ran three miles under 21 was on Thanksgiving.  It was rainy and cold and I did it.  After that it was a matter of doing it for an official time, which I did - more than once.  For the few months before I left Indianapolis that didn’t even cover my expenses, but gave me time to run 6 miles and then lift weights at the recruiter’s office.  Every day – rain, shine, snow, sleet, wind, hail – every fucking day I trained.  I can look myself in the eye and say that I have never worked so hard for anything in my entire life.  Now I wonder why?  I could have worked half as hard and still made it through OCS, of course I didn't know that.  I built the Marine Corps up on a pedestal so high that I'll admit now, I was disappointed.  I was so sure that this is what my purpose in life that when I finally realized it wasn't I don't think I ever really recovered.  I naively believed that I would make a good Marine officer, that I could make decisions that could cost men and women their lives, that I would at some point stop second guessing every decision I made down to what to eat for breakfast, that the women were treated as equals.  There are some things you just can’t prepare for in life.  I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to share with you how hard being a woman and a Marine officer was, but it was so hard in ways that I never expected.  Eventually the system wore me down.  I still wonder if I made the right decision to get out, but I suppose if I stayed in I’d be debating whether or not I had made the right decision to stay in that long. 

So, why am I writing this? One of my writing mentors would ask me this and tell me to figure it out and then revise the piece and just say it.  Most of the time she's right, but this is just a blog and I'm just exploring my thoughts.  Truth is why do we do anything?  Why post confessions that I don’t find my job fulfilling on a public forum where any of my coworkers can get on and read?  I don’t know.  Maybe I want to get a lecture from my older brother.  Today, as I was leaving the office, my boss asked why I have been leaving earlier the last couple days and if it was because I was coming in earlier?  I said I was just exhausted.  Truth is I have slowly left a little earlier each day and the last two days I have lost my keys, forgot my purse, or had some sort of mini-crisis in the morning making me 5 minutes later than usual.  Am I subconsciously trying to get myself fired?  Would that be the end of the world?  Well, considering my boyfriend just put in his 3 week notice and in the headlines today a SWAT team busted some man’s door down looking for his ex-wife because she was delinquent in paying her student loans … yes it might be the end of the world.  Then again I’m just “paying the bills.” 

Is there more to life?  I have slowly watched more and more of the amazing writers I went to school with announce a variety of publications and I’m so happy and proud of them.  But, I can’t help but be a little jealous too.  Not that their work is being published, but that they are doing what we all said we would do – write.  I want to buy every magazine they are in, every book they put out, be supportive but instead I’ve blocked some of them on my Facebook newsfeed.  I hate Facebook.  Why the hell would anyone think it’s a good idea to create a forum where you can openly stalk ex’s and high school classmates with the sole intention of hopefully reassuring yourself that you are happier with your life than they are with theirs. Clearly you’re not if you need that type of validation, but we all do it.  I find myself wanting to block my writer friends because it is simply too depressing to be reminded that I am failing to do what it is that I always wanted to do, but it’s not their fault – it’s mine.  I take sole responsibility for my misery and I’m beginning to hate myself.

I don’t sleep my depression away anymore, probably because I’ve lived here for five years so it’s not a scary, new place where I’m isolated because I have no friends.  Nope, I have friends, know what’s going on where and when.  It's self inflicted isolation.  Instead of going to sleep immediately after getting home to avoid facing life, I read the news.  I listen to talk radio 24/7.  I engross myself with the sensationalism of current affairs to distance myself from my own life.  I watch zombie movies.  I read post-apocalyptic graphic novels.  I live in a world that I’m waiting to end.  I wait for the next plague, the New World Order, the sun to die, nuclear war, anything so my dissatisfaction with life won’t matter anymore.  Nobody will notice that I have given up on the hopeless dream of becoming a writer if there’s an economic collapse and no food at the grocery stores.  If the world ends then literature won’t matter and neither will the potential memoirs of a random girl who was pretty, wore a uniform and spent time overseas.  All the mistakes I made as a leader will be overshadowed by the bigger failures of bigger leaders.  I pray that the world will end so my life will have the most basic purpose of all – survive.

If Bernadette were to read this she’d ask me again - what are you trying to say?  I think I figured it out through writing.  This is a confession.  A confession that I’m a writer who doesn’t have writers block, just excuses – I’m tired, it was a long day at work and I don’t have the energy, I have to work out in the morning, I don’t have anything to say, I never wanted to be a writer anyways.  Confessions of dissatisfaction at work, but hopes I don’t lose my job if I post this because work will always work, but I believe in the company and enjoy working with my coworkers.  I need to post this.  I need to admit to fellow Antiochians and my mentors that I have failed post-graduation and I need their encouragement.  I need to change my life or my attitude and if I write this confession out for anyone to read I’m more likely to hold myself accountable for my actions or lack thereof.  I'm writing this in hopes to remind myself that every passing minute is another chance to turn it all around.

Thinking of you friend.

The first time I went to a Vedanta temple with my friend Laura I wasn’t sure what to expect. I had to been to various church services, but before that day I had never even heard of Vedanta. We navigated through the surface streets of LA, neither sure where the hell we were going. Without GPS and smart phones we would have never made it to the small side street that wound up to a little patch of heaven in the middle of the busy metropolis. We parked and got out of the car, amazed by how quiet it was. You couldn’t hear the busy freeways, the honking car or sirens. We walked up to the temple on the path where her grandparents and parents had once walked and into the modest building. The ceremony had already begun and we took our place in one of the back rows. There were four other people in the pews, which were actual chairs, and those practicing the ceremony in the front of the room. I didn’t understand what they were chanting or what the ceremony meant, but I never understood Catholic Mass either. I sat and enjoyed the tranquility and watched those around me in a calm, peace with their heads bowed and their eyes closed. I decided to follow suit. I can meditate; I thought and tried to quiet my mind. Of course when you try to do a simple task it makes it nearly impossible. At first my head itched, then something outside caught my attention, a bird? A flash of light? Who knows? Then the compulsive thought, “am I doing this right? What am I supposed to be concentrating on? What are they saying?” Sometimes at the beginning of an acupuncture treatment the same thought runs on repeat through my mind. I try to remind myself that there is no right or wrong way to meditate or relax, but I can’t when I’m supposed to, maybe my mind is broken and I simply can’t be at peace on command. I’m at peace when I run or work out, during a long, familiar drive and when I’m writing, but not when I’m sitting still.

Walking back to my car that day Laura said, “I hate meditating like that. I always feel like I’m doing it wrong.” I laughed and told her I felt the exact same way.

I feel the same about grieving as I do meditating. I can’t seem to do it when it’s appropriate and I always feel like I’m doing it wrong. I must have been sick the day they taught us appropriate grieving techniques in elementary school. I haven’t lost a grandparent, parent, sibling or close friend. I see bad or horrible things on the news and I feel distant from the emotions I am supposed to be feeling. I let myself believe that nobody I love can ever die because that’s just cruel and unfair and life is already hard enough so god wouldn’t even dare taking someone away from me. I realize this is unrealistic and even childish, but if you could have held onto the belief that Santa is real for just a little bit longer, or that your babies could believe just one more year, wouldn’t you? I let myself indulge in this fantasy, because like Santa and the Easter Bunny, once I know I’ll never be able to go back.

I remember the day our friend Florian passed. She was my mother’s dear friend and I don’t think my mom thought it would upset me when she told me. I was living in New York and going to a summer graduate program at NYU. I think I had run out of money by then, or maybe it was the last week of my 30 day metrocard before I had to start walking to and from class – from Union Square to the Brooklyn Bridge. I remember I was alone when Mom called, and probably running late. My mother called and there was something in her tone that gave it away before she said the words aloud. There was the initial shock that I didn’t snap out of until one of my roommates asked if I was okay. “No,” was all I could get out before I ran out of the conference room where we had classes. I walked down to Battery City Park. I cried as crowds of people walked by, not a single one looking or asking if I was okay. I remember it was a cold June day and it was starting to rain. I was glad that this kept people out of the park. It was a weekday and people were scarcely scattered about the park I stood and stared at the Statue of Liberty, then wrote in my journal for a bit. There was a Mexican man and his son taking pictures and the father interrupted my journaling to ask if I could take a picture of both of them. He then explained how they had travelled all the way from Mexico City just to see the Statue of Liberty. I thought this was a strange pilgrimage since they weren’t American, but then I remembered all the castles and landmarks I visited in Scotland when I lived there. My eyes were probably red and my cheeks stained with tears, but this man just rambled on and on about their journey to get there. I listened, because that’s what I do when strangers want to tell me their story (and they always seem to seek me out for this task). I smiled, glad that they had made it and it meant so much to them to see Lady Liberty even though I just wanted to sit on a bench and pour my heart out in the blank pages of my journal. I was glad when they left without asking me to dinner or trying to hit on me, the man simply wanted to share their moment of joy and triumph with someone and I just happened to be the someone who was around. He wanted someone to know what that moment meant to him and I was able to hide my moment of sorrow behind his excitement.

I think about this day from time to time when something reminds me of Florian. I feel selfish for not thinking of my mother, when it was her close friend who passed. She talks about her often and I know she misses her. I feel ashamed that I didn’t try to contact her husband and children with condolences. I can remember being upset that I wasn’t living at home and couldn’t drive out to Oklahoma with my family to go to the funeral. This was the first of many events I have been too far away to attend. I wonder if someday I’ll regret living so far away. It will be seven years this summer and I still wonder if I grieved properly. Maybe I should have checked on my mother that afternoon.

Today, I opened up my email to the subject line, “Funeral.” My parents have been active members of the Tecumseh Lodge since I can remember. We have danced at the Tecumseh Labor Day Powwow every year for the last 20+ years. I get emails about member’s failing health, births, deaths, graduations and every other triumph and trial of life that they want to share with the lodge. I haven’t lived at home for ten years, and don’t always get home for the Labor Day powwow let alone for the lodge socials and other dances. I don’t usually recognize the names in the emails and delete them without reading the details, but this morning the name for the funeral notice was Jim Deer. I’m trying to remember if I saw Jim when I was home this past September for the 50th anniversary of the Labor Day powwow. Did I talk to him? Did he eat with our family over the weekend? Was he even there? As we always say, “if I knew that would be the last time …”

I didn’t know Jim any better than I knew Florian, but they both influenced my life more than they will ever know. I was extremely shy growing up, but at every dance Jim came over to our camp and asked me how I was doing and what I was learning in school. Jim lost his son after he left for the military. During off hours he was playing football with some of the guys and broke his neck. Growing up, I can remember wondering why Jim always looked a little sadder than everyone else. He lost his wife and adopted son far earlier than is fair in life, as well. Jim was a veteran and I remember watching him dance around the arena with the other veterans during the memorial songs. During Officer Candidate School (OCS), when I didn’t think I could push myself one more step, I thought of Jim and the other Veterans that I had watched through the years and kept going for them. During the Veteran’s song they danced through the arena with a humble pride, grace and unexplainable sorrow that I never quite understood until I went to war. My dad sang with Jim on the drum and I know he’ll be singing his favorite songs in heaven today and Jim will finally be at peace with his wife and sons.

I think today I will take my journal to the Vedanta temple here in San Diego. Instead of trying to sit still and meditating, wondering if I’m doing it wrong, I will take my journal and meditate my way and think of those I’ve lost and those I’m fortunate enough to still have here. Like we always do, I’ll swear I’ll try to call those I don’t see or talk to daily a little more often, even though I know I probably won’t.

Today, I miss my friends, but instead of wishing I had spent more time with them while they were here or wondering when was the last time we spoke, I will be grateful that they were part of my life at all. I’ll remind myself that grieving is like meditating, there is no right or wrong way to do it. I’ll listen for the songs from heaven, because I know Jim and Florian will be singing joyfully for us to hear and know they are doing alright.

Decisions

I wanted to post an update and thank everyone for their warm thoughts and comments.  I decided to drop back to the Inactive Ready Reserve (IRR) and hopefully I won't be pulled back to deploy.  If I do get called back I'll go and lead Marines to the best of my ability because it is my duty.  I feel like I made the right choice.  I didn't do anything to get out of the deployment, they simply gave me a choice and I hope it all works out.  There is still a chance that I will have to go, but that was the best I could do to keep it my choice.  Now I sit and wait.

I've spent a lot of time in the last two days thinking.  Thinking about my time in Iraq.  Thinking about active duty.  Thinking about why I joined the Marine Corps to begin with and why I went back to the reserves when I missed it.  I thought about how bad some of the leadership in my prior command was and I thought about how great a few individual leaders in that command were.  I sat in my office watching at the Marines and Sailors coming in and out of the office cheerfully working.  I finally concluded that they deserved better.  They deserve someone who's heart is in the fight.  Not someone who got out for a lot of different reasons and went back to see if she made the right decision.  Over the last six months, I got my answer.  I put the uniform back on, this time with Captain bars.  I had a better attitude, had a lot of fun and became a better Marine and leader.  However, the truth remains the same -  the Marine Corps will never change.  The faces of the young, gung ho Marines evolve, but the Marine Corps doesn't.  I can go back in six months or a year.  I have two years on the IRR.  There is a strong chance that I will have to deploy during that time or I can start drilling with the reserves again.  As a Gunny keeps reminding me, I serve at the pleasure of the President so I am never really free.  I kind of like that fact.  I'm part of something for the rest of my life no matter what.  A commitment I can't break, divorce or run from.  I like to think that when I'm 90 and aliens invade earth I'll be pulled back to kick alien ass or that someday I'll really get to be a space Marine (although I can't figure out why Marines are always featured in sci-fi movies when there really isn't much water for amphibious tactics in space).  I go back to my other job today with a heavy heart.  "I did the best I could with what I had," I tell myself.  "It was the right decision for you, today."  Still, I wonder if I did the right thing.   

Life

The funny thing about life is it’s hardly funny at all.  You have to look for the humor.  You have to learn to laugh at the things that aren’t funny because it’s never fair, it’s never logical and it’s never easy.

I have a choice.  I can leave.  I spend at least five minutes of everyday dreaming recklessly leaving without any intentions to actually do so.  Or I can stay.  I have been trying to redefine my comfort zone lately so staying would give me that opportunity.  Think about it I’m told and then I leave the office with a heavy heart and mind and sit down in my own office to make a decision.  I write out a list of pros/cons because that is how we’re told to make a good decision.  The funny thing is I’ve made these lists before and I’m sure I’ll make them again, but I never go with the logical choice of the one that has the most bullet points under its header.  Sometimes I flip a coin and other times I just blurt out what I want to do while trying to feign ponderance so it appears that I have made a logical, sound decision.  In reality, it’s much easier.  I listen to myself.  We always know what we want to do, it’s just a matter of figuring out if we can or should do it.  It’s not always plausible, but where there’s a will there’s a way.  Usually financing needs to be taken into account, family and friends, jobs, responsibilities.  We can never just get up and leave because of all the things we are attached to like our comfort zone, which is called that for a reason.

My list goes something like this:

Pros:

-Money (tax free, that might give away what this decision is)

-Pride and honor

-Adventure

-Time to take online classes and enough time to earn another degree?  Do I really need another piece of paper saying I had the patience to do so?

-Vacation at the end – I could go back to the jungle

Cons:

-400 days away

-Just started a new job in October, don’t want to be gone for a year

-400 days … didn’t you read that!?!

-Wearing a uniform for 400 days. 

-Hair product build up and breakage from pulling hair back (yes this is something to take into consideration)

-Pride – I signed a contract and still feel an obligation to fill it even if I don’t believe in most of the circumstances.

-Four hundred fucking days!

I want to stay.  I want my relationship to work and I want to go home in March to see Les Miserables with my sisters and mother.  I want go somewhere over Memorial Day – maybe camping at the Grand Canyon?  I want to celebrate the Fourth of July, I want to learn my job and do well at it, I want I want I want.  At the same time, I signed a contract.  I have an obligation to fill.  I need the money.  I need I should I could.  So, what do I do?  There’s also the risk that if my status changes I could get called back for an even longer or worse deployment. It’s a gamble either way and as we all know, in gambling the house always wins.  What do I do?  Will the US still be standing in a year?  Can I afford to leave for an entire year?  Can I afford not to?  Fuck.  I hate this.  I hate trying to make a logical decision based on a system that isn’t rational.  This is Russian roulette and I have to decide take my turn now or wait until later to see if time runs out before my number comes up again.  How do you laugh at that?  How do you laugh when the big guy in the sky is saying fuck you?  You say, “Wow, big news and I haven’t even had coffee yet,” followed by nervous laughter because you know it’s your turn to draw the proverbial short stick.  You go home and tell your boyfriend the news and wait for his response.  You make jokes that god hates you and blame some made up deity for your problems because that’s easier than the reality that it’s all random.  You hide the fact that you don’t want to go now or later because it makes you look like a bad Marine.  You cry when nobody is looking and throw yourself a pity party because nobody else will.  If someone catches you, you tell them we don’t sustainably grow chocolate and you’re really upset that we won’t have any of this delectable treat in twenty years.  You scream obscenities to nobody as you drive home furiously.  Finally you pray, you pray and you hope more than anything in the world that you were wrong about all your conclusions of god.  You hope he/she/it/they are good, kind and reasonable and they’ll help you out just this once. 

A therapist once told me I can’t second-guess myself.  I just have to make a decision to the best of my ability at the time and live with it.  No need for regret, I made the best decision with the information and tools that I had at the time.  I can’t change what has been done.    She agreed and told me nobody is perfect and I would have to learn to live with this fact.   

Today I’ll make a decision.  I won’t second-guess myself no matter how many Marines tell me to go or not to go.  When other officers say, “I hate to see officers leave, especially when they have so much potential,” I’ll say thanks, but it’s my decision and it’s what’s right for me.  This is my decision to make with the information I have today, not all the what ifs of tomorrow or the next day or the next ten years.  I will not let pride get in the way of what I want in life.  I will not let false promises fool me this time around.  I will not feel bad for making a decision that is best for me, not the Marine Corps.  Yes, today I will make a decision and I will pray to every idea of god, fate, randomosity in the world that this will remain my decision to make, because we all know with the Marines they make it look like your decision, but really they do what they want.

Bring on the Apocalypse

I recently became obsessed with the apocalypse.  It's been something I've been interested in at other times in life.  I have always loved end of the world (especially Kevin Costner post apocalyptic flicks) and zombie movies (I'm very anxiously awaiting Resident Evil 4), but recently with the economy in the dumps, questionable wars raging on, and my own life situation (soon to be unemployed again), the obsession of movies has turned into an obsession of awaiting.  I've started to dive into all the books I should have, but never read before, 1984, Blindness, Brave New World, The Postman, World War Z, to name a few currently sitting on my "to read" shelf.  I am catching up on all the post apocalyptic movies I somehow missed.  The difference now is I watch, read and study these circumstances to mentally prepare myself.  Of course people think I'm crazy.  A "doomsdayer," a "gloom and doomer" so I've been called.  Is this what modern technology and society has done to us?  Killed the basic instinct for survival.  Is fight or flight instinct now sit and die?  During the Great Depression 90% of Americans were self sufficient.  I don't even think 9% of Americans could become self sufficient in a time of crisis today.  I'm sorry, but if Paris Hilton had to fend for herself to get food, shelter and water my money is that she would sit on the side of the road and give up along with a lot of other people.  So, am I really that far off the scale of normality to prepare myself for such incidences?  Yes, a zombie or vampire virus released to the public to spread world wide is unlikely, but what can we learn from these movies?  The modern day warrior plays video games and watches movies to prepare for war, is it so weird to read 1984 and take into account that we have the technology and in most cases have already been set up for a Big Brother take over?  There are now video cameras at most traffic intersections and as we transfer over to e-books are we creating the power to erase and alter history?

Sure I might be taking things to the extreme when I daydream about building a bomb shelter in the middle of the desert, but if there was an earthquake in California that disrupted the flow of food to our local grocery store is it a bad idea to have a week or more rations of food in the garage?  With Russia burning down and 1/3 of the world's wheat crop destroyed, is it wrong to prepare for food shortages mentally and physically?

Yes, it's a bit ridiculous to take notes while watching movies about alien invasions, but do you really think it's out of the realm of possibilities?  We live in a society that lives preparing for a hypothetical future on paper.  We plan our retirements in Florida and how to make money off fake economic systems all the while paying for insurance on our cars, houses, property - life itself.  Now, do I really sound that ridiculous preparing for an earthquake or nuclear war by storing food in the garage (which, unfortunately, I haven't had the time or money to do) opposed to investing money in a fiat money system with nothing but bank statements to back it up?  Maybe the apocalypse isn't going to be one huge event of massive death and destruction with a few survivors left to struggle and find one another and create a new world from the ashes.  What if the apocalypse is a slow take over of our mind and will to survive against all odds without our laptops, IRAs, automatic driving cars, wireless internet and Facebook.  What if we are in the apocalypse now?  What if this was the beginning and in another ten years we will find ourselves roaming the roads of what was once called America trying to find food so we won't have to eat one another.  Of course on the flip side what if the economy picks up and in another ten years we have regular shuttles for vacations on the moon?

Maybe I'm just daydreaming about the end because then interviews, careers, retirement, loan payment plans, housing markets and all of the other things that bogs down our life in adulthood wouldn't matter anymore.  Maybe it is a bit fucked up that instead of looking and applying for work I'm sitting here daydreaming about the end of the world.  If the world does end tomorrow then none of this bull shit that gets in the way of, but is essentially what makes up life, would also cease to exist.  Then again, "On a long enough time line the survival rate of everything drops to zero." (Chuck P.).  Maybe we shouldn't sit around and wait for Superman or a global leader to come rescue us and start preparing ourselves.  If the apocalypse was tomorrow how long would you survive?  2012 is right around the corner after all.

Well, in case the world doesn't end I should probably work on life plans again.

MFA Senior Reading at Antioch University from Lisbeth Prifogle on Vimeo.

On Quitting

"Don't do that you'll regret it," my mom says over the phone. 
"No, actually I won't," I tell her in regards to the latest bad idea I have.  "At this point I regret not quitting a year ago.  At this point the only thing I am loosing is my time."

We're talking about school.  Again.
"You're so close, Libby.  Just finish it." 
"Fine, if I get everything done on time I'll do it, obviously.  If I don't get everything done I'm done.  I can't do this any longer."

I've been working on my MFA for almost three years.  It's a two-year program, but between a deployment to Iraq and time in Peru I had to extend two semesters.  I'm exhausted and for two semesters I have grown to hate, despise, loathe and whatever other verb you want to add, reading.  I want to burn every stupid book I own.  Now, I'm starting to resent writing.  I try to sit down and do work, but it makes me angry.  I'm pissed off I haven't graduated yet, I'm mad that I don't really have much of a manuscript, just lots of pieces that don't quite connect.  I'm tired and frustrated that I spend everyday of my life so worried about all the work I have to for this program that I can't ever get anything done.  It's a vicious cycle and I fear that school might stop me from writing altogether.  I have done exactly what I was trying not to do - force myself to write.  I went into the Marines because I didn't want to write for a living.  I believe any creative outlet done for money looses its value to the creator.  Apparently, doing it for professors and deadlines ruins it too.  The funny thing is I never studied writing with the goal of publication or a career.  I write for the same reason I play the piano when nobody is around to hear - I enjoy the act.  If someone came to me and asked to publish the crap I'm throwing together as my final manuscript would I object?  Of course not, but I also don't need a book to validate what the value writing is and has been for me.

What am I trying to say?  I had a professor ask me after every piece I sent to her, "What are you trying to say?  Figure that out and say it."  It was the most important lesson I have learned in the many years I've spent studying writing.  What I'm declaring right here, right now to whomever comes upon this post is this - if I don't finish the things I need to finish by the deadlines of this semester I'm done.  I'm not going to regret not finishing this even though I'm so close.  In many ways I think it will free me.  I spend time at school and online talking about writing with very competitive, adult writers and it has stripped the joy out of the task.  In June - one way or another - I'm going to be done with school.  Do not call, write or try to convince me otherwise.  I'm telling you, not asking for encouragement, this is over.

In the last week people have tried to encourage me.  It's useless.  Mark Twain once said, "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do."  Well, I'm in school for writing and I no longer write.  I think twenty years from now I'll be more disappointed that I did not have the courage to follow my heart so I could continue doing what I love rather than focusing on getting a piece of paper that I don't need in order to write.  Off and on for the last ten years I have been in school for writing asking permission from professors, administrators, financial aid directors to write.  I don't need permission to write.  I need freedom to write.  We teach our children to follow their dreams and not to quit what they have started, but what happens when one is in the way of the other?