The surreal quality of my life here at Oxford has changed slightly with the commencement of my seven-week long spring break. A real sense of displacement and disorientation has been dogging my footsteps as I travel around, stay put, and prepare to travel once more.
My first week of break was mostly consumed with working on some important applications; the second was spent travelling with my family; and I'm spending this third week here in Oxford. After my aunt’s visit that begins this weekend, I’ll quickly pack up and prepare all the last minute details of the three-week trip that will conclude my break. I’m in denial about how quickly break has already been evaporating. The days have been ticking past in a blur, and I have the sad feeling that I will wake up tomorrow to go home to the States. That day a few months from now keeps drawing my eye in my planner, and I return to it with a slightly masochistic fascination—the end date to my year abroad.
I had dreaded not seeing my family for an entire 6.5 months and was very relieved when my mom and little brother decided to visit me in London. Whenever someone visits me in England, I am confronted with the reality that hey, that person is visiting England—and I’m here, in the place that person is visiting—so, oh, yes, of course: I’m in England. It shocks me every time. My own thick-headedness was unexpected. In fact, how surreal this year is perhaps makes the most surprising quality of studying abroad.
The train journey felt, as it often does, matter of fact: I was travelling somewhere, I’d arrive soon, then my family would be there. I lugged my bag up the stairs and craned my neck around the corner. There they were, exhausted from jet lag but smiling. The thought crossed my mind, wow, we have ten whole days together. And suddenly, we were back at the train station, embracing, parting with a sweet “I miss you already! Love you!” It was over. Done. That’s the ultimate frustrating cycle, huh? Because I enjoy something, the time flies; because I enjoy something, I don’t want it to end. So therefore because I enjoy something, I’m forced to love that which is fleeting, and it becomes insubstantial, transient in my clutching, tightening fingertips.
We saw many of the things I had wanted to do in London, including the National Portrait Gallery, the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, St. James Park, the London Eye, a Thames River Cruise, Piccadilly Circus, the Tate, Oxford Street, and Portobello Market. London feels familiar, like it’s claimed me in the same way that DC has. During their visit we also ventured to Barcelona, which was not my favorite city, though still enjoyable overall. It felt a little out of date somehow, and the food was disappointing. I enjoyed the architecture, which was eclectic, surprising, cohesive only in its diversity. The beach was also a gorgeous shade of blue, though too cold to swim in yet. My jeans got a bit soaked and the sand stuck between my toes within the confines of my shoes as we left the beach. But then I realized, I have sand from the beach of Barcelona, Spain and the water of the Mediterranean Sea on my person. The tangible quality of discomfort slightly helped the reality to sink in. Finally, I dragged the family around Oxford to show them my favorite places and we made a quick trip to the Brighton beach. The trip really did feel almost over before it had started and at other moments like it lasted for ages. We had slipped back into that comfortable familiarity of knowing each other in a way that only family can. Saying goodbye was hard, certainly, but the awareness of how quickly the rest of my time here will pass made it easier. I’ll be seeing them again very, very soon.
My one relaxing week of break actually spent in Oxford has also gone by quickly. I had some unexpected additional applications to work on, errands to run, details to take care of in planning my three week trip. It occurred to me, while riding the train back to Oxford after telling my family goodbye, that I was going home. How ambiguous and heavy and nuanced the word home has become for me. If I left it at that, “I rode the train home,” it could be heading to multiple locations: Kansas, Washington, DC, or Oxford. Isn’t there something powerful in that? When I was in Barcelona, I anticipated returning to the UK, to England, to my family’s little apartment in London that we had rented, to Oxford, to my dorm room, to my computer that connected me with all my friends and family across the ocean. Thinking about how far removed I was from home, peeling back the layers of distance, made me feel...displaced. Like a vagabond. Like what was at the core of all those layers, the idea of one true home, had lost its meaning in the shuffle, suffocated by the layers surrounding it. But I'm learning to accept and love my three homes in their separateness and in their commonalities.
I keep learning more and more about this newest home of mine. With the weather warming up in Oxford, the perfect scene was set for me to return to it like a lover after a six month absence—smiling in a way that took up my whole face, feeling peace in the familiarity of that which I returned to, trust that I would be welcomed, hope for all that we would experience in our reunion. I anticipate the rest of my break; I anticipate the rest of my time in Oxford; I anticipate seeing my family once more. It will be all too soon before I write again, looking back to the entirety of my seven-week spring break.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Monday, March 21, 2011
An Unlimited Future...That Makes Me Feel Claustrophobic
It’s very odd to think about life after college. Hmmm, that sounds so lame. But I really think it’s terrifying.
Objectively speaking I guess my life’s pretty put together. I have no genuine fears that I won’t figure something out. But at the same, being an English major will give me so much freedom to do whatever I want—perhaps too much freedom. I’ve been spending the beginning of my break working on applications to write a thesis and to attend law school. Do I want to attend law school? Maybe. That’s the most definitive answer I’ve arrived at.
I think about this way too much, the scope of the decisions I need to make and the impact those decisions will have on the rest of my life. It isn't really even the pure decision of law school vs. grad school that intimidates me.
This is what is so scary about deciding what I want to do after college: choosing what kind of degree I want determines the pool of schools I apply to and what kind of job I will have and the part of the country I live in. If I choose to live in New York as opposed to Seattle or Chicago or Texas, I will make different friendships and probably meet, fall in love with, and marry a different man.
Every single person that I could ask for advice would inevitably tell me that I should not think about all these other things that I can’t control, to take it one step at a time, that everything will work out, that I can and will probably change my career a few times in my lifetime. Is that actually supposed to be reassuring? Of course it’s true, but is it comforting? My life lies before me like a choose-your-own-ending adventure book from my childhood. If I choose law over a PhD in English over a master’s in history, I know that being directed to turn to page 16 will lead to a series of completely different outcomes...almost a completely different life.
Ugh this is disgustingly melodramatic. And of course it all just serves to remind me how little control I ultimately have over the course of my own life. It’s all in God’s hands and I trust Him absolutely. When I was accepted to Georgetown and to Oxford, I felt His hand guiding and blessing me. It’s been confirmed in the rightness of my life, the purpose I’ve felt, the people I’ve met, the ways in which I have grown. I’ve been praying and thinking and oscillating between futures, but He sees what’s to come.
I wish I had ever had that clear, defined dream before me: “I’ve always wanted to be a ______.” It didn’t happen, though, as a child, and I doubt now that it ever will. That’s okay. My life is unfolding in this beautiful, frustrating, slow, surprising way. Sometimes it feels like a movie, at others a tragedy, and sometimes like a painfully dull slice of reality. But I’m beginning to feel more comfortable in my own skin, more confident that it will all work out. I can’t see what’s coming. I’m still so indecisive that it can take me an hour to choose what I want for lunch; now imagine the formidable task of choosing my future.
It’s not as simple as “leave your options open and apply to law school and grad school.” The application process for each is rigorous, expensive, and time-consuming. Nor will the advice “you have plenty of time to figure it out” suffice for any longer. In the next six months or so I need to at least choose between law and grad school. Yes, my future is open before me, with endless possibility. That’s not the problem. And I suppose I should appreciate that in and of itself. I have so much possibility in my hands: what a blessing. Perhaps there really is no right or wrong choice. I’ll find out.
Objectively speaking I guess my life’s pretty put together. I have no genuine fears that I won’t figure something out. But at the same, being an English major will give me so much freedom to do whatever I want—perhaps too much freedom. I’ve been spending the beginning of my break working on applications to write a thesis and to attend law school. Do I want to attend law school? Maybe. That’s the most definitive answer I’ve arrived at.
I think about this way too much, the scope of the decisions I need to make and the impact those decisions will have on the rest of my life. It isn't really even the pure decision of law school vs. grad school that intimidates me.
This is what is so scary about deciding what I want to do after college: choosing what kind of degree I want determines the pool of schools I apply to and what kind of job I will have and the part of the country I live in. If I choose to live in New York as opposed to Seattle or Chicago or Texas, I will make different friendships and probably meet, fall in love with, and marry a different man.
Every single person that I could ask for advice would inevitably tell me that I should not think about all these other things that I can’t control, to take it one step at a time, that everything will work out, that I can and will probably change my career a few times in my lifetime. Is that actually supposed to be reassuring? Of course it’s true, but is it comforting? My life lies before me like a choose-your-own-ending adventure book from my childhood. If I choose law over a PhD in English over a master’s in history, I know that being directed to turn to page 16 will lead to a series of completely different outcomes...almost a completely different life.
Ugh this is disgustingly melodramatic. And of course it all just serves to remind me how little control I ultimately have over the course of my own life. It’s all in God’s hands and I trust Him absolutely. When I was accepted to Georgetown and to Oxford, I felt His hand guiding and blessing me. It’s been confirmed in the rightness of my life, the purpose I’ve felt, the people I’ve met, the ways in which I have grown. I’ve been praying and thinking and oscillating between futures, but He sees what’s to come.
I wish I had ever had that clear, defined dream before me: “I’ve always wanted to be a ______.” It didn’t happen, though, as a child, and I doubt now that it ever will. That’s okay. My life is unfolding in this beautiful, frustrating, slow, surprising way. Sometimes it feels like a movie, at others a tragedy, and sometimes like a painfully dull slice of reality. But I’m beginning to feel more comfortable in my own skin, more confident that it will all work out. I can’t see what’s coming. I’m still so indecisive that it can take me an hour to choose what I want for lunch; now imagine the formidable task of choosing my future.
It’s not as simple as “leave your options open and apply to law school and grad school.” The application process for each is rigorous, expensive, and time-consuming. Nor will the advice “you have plenty of time to figure it out” suffice for any longer. In the next six months or so I need to at least choose between law and grad school. Yes, my future is open before me, with endless possibility. That’s not the problem. And I suppose I should appreciate that in and of itself. I have so much possibility in my hands: what a blessing. Perhaps there really is no right or wrong choice. I’ll find out.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Will I Survive That Approaching Deadline....
It’s a heady feeling. That of being....very alive. A bit anxious. On edge. My toe is tapping, my fingertips dance aimlessly on top of the keyboard, without enough purpose to type anything. I gaze around the room, whether it be the solemn beauty of the Upper Cam, the soothing familiarity of the Mansfield library, or the crazy mess that is my own room.
The time in the bottom corner of the computer screen draws my eye, a bit too often. The deadline for the essay is approaching, perhaps twelve hours, eight hours, five, four, three, half, two minutes.
My eyes traverse the pages I’ve typed, on a hyper-aware, adrenaline-induced speed reading of my own words: do they make sense? is there a thesis somewhere in the mess of words? can I make the lines and lines of characters something cohesive, meaningful, with purpose, worthwhile?
As the deadline approaches, looming ever closer in its menacing finality, my doubts about the essay are magnified, intensified. What the hell have I written? Who would this possibly make sense to apart from me, the crazy writer of disconnected ramblings? Is my thesis too safe, does it work, will it develop into something better?
Have you ever literally read so much that when you put the book down for a break, your vision is a little fuzzy, your eyes watery, your body mad at you for being sedentary for too long? I mean, hey, I’m an English major: I should be used to it by now. But I really am doing much, much more reading and writing than I ever have before.
Some of the reading is enjoyable—particularly my Victorian lit. reading assignments. My history tutorial this term, however, demands caffeine daily: how can someone sit down to read a 500 page history book and actually remain engaged? It doesn’t matter that I take notes, indulge in small facebook breaks, listen to music, get up and stretch, tug on my left ear with my right hand to wake up my brain, chew on gum, tap my foot—the possibilities are endless with methods of attempting to stay awake; their lack of effectiveness is pretty uniform, however.
The study schedule here is so open-ended with short bursts of intensive stress. The days preceding the deadline are centered around going to the different libraries to read non-circulating books, avoiding my room with the very tempting bed (naps are ever so lovely), and trying to make enough progress through the readings to get a good handle on the material. Sometimes that happens after the first reading, the fourth, or not at all—even after reading a whole list of sources sometimes I feel completely unprepared to even approach a formidable essay prompt, let alone actually write the essay.
So what gets me through the essays? How do Oxford students do it? I can’t answer for them of course, but a few things help me actually finish my essays on-time: food/caffeine, friends, and non-academic events to look forward to, such as going to formal halls, getting tea, anticipating a bop, taking a weekend trip, skype dates, etc. “In two hours I’ll have turned this in and I’ll then get to go to...”
The essay will always, my friends and I say, get done. I trust myself to finish it, persevere, produce something even if it’s not my best work. And while sometimes it does feel a little bit like finals week for half of term, eight weeks truly is a concentrated term time that flies by with how busy everyone is.
Books don’t, perhaps, provide the enjoyment they once did for me. But I still love the smell of old books. Hearing “Jane Austen” mentioned by someone in passing is probably still pretty much guaranteed to make me smile. And I still lovingly skim the book bindings with my fingertips as I wander through the aisles searching for the latest that have been assigned. So while I am indeed writing this as a distraction from my twelfth and final essay of this term (due in about twelve hours), and am somewhat sickened at the pile of books resting next to me, I’m also excited to venture through some used bookstores this weekend to find some light, FUN reading to travel across Europe with me over break.
The time in the bottom corner of the computer screen draws my eye, a bit too often. The deadline for the essay is approaching, perhaps twelve hours, eight hours, five, four, three, half, two minutes.
My eyes traverse the pages I’ve typed, on a hyper-aware, adrenaline-induced speed reading of my own words: do they make sense? is there a thesis somewhere in the mess of words? can I make the lines and lines of characters something cohesive, meaningful, with purpose, worthwhile?
As the deadline approaches, looming ever closer in its menacing finality, my doubts about the essay are magnified, intensified. What the hell have I written? Who would this possibly make sense to apart from me, the crazy writer of disconnected ramblings? Is my thesis too safe, does it work, will it develop into something better?
Have you ever literally read so much that when you put the book down for a break, your vision is a little fuzzy, your eyes watery, your body mad at you for being sedentary for too long? I mean, hey, I’m an English major: I should be used to it by now. But I really am doing much, much more reading and writing than I ever have before.
Some of the reading is enjoyable—particularly my Victorian lit. reading assignments. My history tutorial this term, however, demands caffeine daily: how can someone sit down to read a 500 page history book and actually remain engaged? It doesn’t matter that I take notes, indulge in small facebook breaks, listen to music, get up and stretch, tug on my left ear with my right hand to wake up my brain, chew on gum, tap my foot—the possibilities are endless with methods of attempting to stay awake; their lack of effectiveness is pretty uniform, however.
The study schedule here is so open-ended with short bursts of intensive stress. The days preceding the deadline are centered around going to the different libraries to read non-circulating books, avoiding my room with the very tempting bed (naps are ever so lovely), and trying to make enough progress through the readings to get a good handle on the material. Sometimes that happens after the first reading, the fourth, or not at all—even after reading a whole list of sources sometimes I feel completely unprepared to even approach a formidable essay prompt, let alone actually write the essay.
So what gets me through the essays? How do Oxford students do it? I can’t answer for them of course, but a few things help me actually finish my essays on-time: food/caffeine, friends, and non-academic events to look forward to, such as going to formal halls, getting tea, anticipating a bop, taking a weekend trip, skype dates, etc. “In two hours I’ll have turned this in and I’ll then get to go to...”
The essay will always, my friends and I say, get done. I trust myself to finish it, persevere, produce something even if it’s not my best work. And while sometimes it does feel a little bit like finals week for half of term, eight weeks truly is a concentrated term time that flies by with how busy everyone is.
Books don’t, perhaps, provide the enjoyment they once did for me. But I still love the smell of old books. Hearing “Jane Austen” mentioned by someone in passing is probably still pretty much guaranteed to make me smile. And I still lovingly skim the book bindings with my fingertips as I wander through the aisles searching for the latest that have been assigned. So while I am indeed writing this as a distraction from my twelfth and final essay of this term (due in about twelve hours), and am somewhat sickened at the pile of books resting next to me, I’m also excited to venture through some used bookstores this weekend to find some light, FUN reading to travel across Europe with me over break.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
A Day to Cry.
I’m not much of a crier and never have been. Not that I can’t relate to people who do cry often: it’s such a healthy outlet when one’s feeling more than it seems possible for any person to feel. There is one day every year that I give myself permission, I even encourage myself, to cry. Today is that day.
It won’t happen though; it rarely does on this day. My tear ducts are as obstinate as the rest of me.
What makes today a day unlike any other, emotional, entitled to self-pity (and worthy of a somewhat emo blog post)? I suppose I could provide several reasons.
It’s weird, I think, to experience a pivotal, monumental event that changes one’s life to the extent that one can no longer remember life before that event. It’s a blur, fuzzy, undefined because of the dominance of that event. The years preceding this day twelve years ago have been contaminated with that event, infused with the changes it created in my life so that it seems as though I’ve always been this way, from birth.
A chronic illness makes it hard to escape, to separate me from it: are we inextricably intertwined? Who would I be without diabetes? I like to think I’m more responsible, more compassionate, more independent, stronger because of this disease of mine. Who knows if that is actually true, apart from God. I cherish the friends I’ve made through diabetes, especially my best friend, Jessica. I like to wrap my mind around each positive way diabetes has shaped me, every warm, good memory I have because of diabetes.
That really is what makes it so hard to cry on demand today. I don’t see how I could live every day, going through the motions, if I gave into self-pity about something I can’t change. I certainly don’t have the worst disease, the heaviest burden to bear. Really I think that because diabetes has infiltrated its way so smoothly, so completely into my life, I don’t resent it as much anymore. I grumble at the inconvenience of it sometimes, twinge in discomfort with the shots occasionally, question what it would be like to be liberated from the drug I owe my life to. I can’t say I don’t dream of a cure.
But like my family, like my faith, like my patriotism, Midwestern roots, and addiction to literature, I cannot imagine the gap not having diabetes would create in my life. Would I still reach for my meter to take my blood sugar as soon as I wake up, before meals, when I’m shaky, when I don’t feel well, before climbing into bed? Would I go to push the button to take insulin on my pump that isn’t there, in my pocket? Would I look at food and not evaluate how many carbohydrates are in it? Perhaps it’s stupid to imagine that with sweet freedom I wouldn’t be the same person, wouldn’t know how to cope. To think that I could have some weird Stockholm syndrome-esque regard for diabetes. Maybe it’s too optimistic, too delusional, or even too pessimistic—after all, shouldn’t I be anticipating and hoping and praying for the cure that has to come eventually?
That’s another reason I can't cry today. I can’t help thinking of diabetics 100 years ago—who would have died immediately after getting diabetes—and diabetics forty years ago who would have been taking insulin in very painful, less effective, and high-maintenance injections. Even thinking back to my own diagnosis and the years following, I took five plus shots per day for many years, before I got an insulin pump two years ago. With the technological advances making my life as a diabetic easier year by year, it’s hard not to feel grateful in the face of the suffering of earlier diabetics.
Perhaps the real reason I’m not crying as I write this is that I enjoy defying expectations. That’s what everyone expects diabetics to do on the anniversary of getting their chronic illness, I imagine: cry, pretend the day doesn’t exist, wallow in self-pity. That’s why it’s awkward to tell people I’m “celebrating” my diabetic “birthday” (to be fair, what is someone supposed to reply to that: "Congratulations!"?). It would be healthy to cry, especially since a diabetic can’t exactly say, “Well today is a special day, so I’ll just take a break from insulin today—it’ll be fine. No big.” It all makes sense, all the reasons to be sad today. I just made a decision a few years ago to actively recognize this day and ask my family and friends to celebrate it with me. I want to rejoice in the blessings I’ve received, in how healthy I am despite having diabetes, how much easier my disease is to manage today.
So year twelve of diabetes will start off on a positive note. My stuffed animal (or stuffed organ, technically, I suppose), Patty the Pancreas (a present from my mom when I had been recently diagnosed), and I will have lunch with my friends and celebrate all the trouble and all the joy this rather unlovable disease has brought into my life.
It won’t happen though; it rarely does on this day. My tear ducts are as obstinate as the rest of me.
What makes today a day unlike any other, emotional, entitled to self-pity (and worthy of a somewhat emo blog post)? I suppose I could provide several reasons.
It’s weird, I think, to experience a pivotal, monumental event that changes one’s life to the extent that one can no longer remember life before that event. It’s a blur, fuzzy, undefined because of the dominance of that event. The years preceding this day twelve years ago have been contaminated with that event, infused with the changes it created in my life so that it seems as though I’ve always been this way, from birth.
A chronic illness makes it hard to escape, to separate me from it: are we inextricably intertwined? Who would I be without diabetes? I like to think I’m more responsible, more compassionate, more independent, stronger because of this disease of mine. Who knows if that is actually true, apart from God. I cherish the friends I’ve made through diabetes, especially my best friend, Jessica. I like to wrap my mind around each positive way diabetes has shaped me, every warm, good memory I have because of diabetes.
That really is what makes it so hard to cry on demand today. I don’t see how I could live every day, going through the motions, if I gave into self-pity about something I can’t change. I certainly don’t have the worst disease, the heaviest burden to bear. Really I think that because diabetes has infiltrated its way so smoothly, so completely into my life, I don’t resent it as much anymore. I grumble at the inconvenience of it sometimes, twinge in discomfort with the shots occasionally, question what it would be like to be liberated from the drug I owe my life to. I can’t say I don’t dream of a cure.
But like my family, like my faith, like my patriotism, Midwestern roots, and addiction to literature, I cannot imagine the gap not having diabetes would create in my life. Would I still reach for my meter to take my blood sugar as soon as I wake up, before meals, when I’m shaky, when I don’t feel well, before climbing into bed? Would I go to push the button to take insulin on my pump that isn’t there, in my pocket? Would I look at food and not evaluate how many carbohydrates are in it? Perhaps it’s stupid to imagine that with sweet freedom I wouldn’t be the same person, wouldn’t know how to cope. To think that I could have some weird Stockholm syndrome-esque regard for diabetes. Maybe it’s too optimistic, too delusional, or even too pessimistic—after all, shouldn’t I be anticipating and hoping and praying for the cure that has to come eventually?
That’s another reason I can't cry today. I can’t help thinking of diabetics 100 years ago—who would have died immediately after getting diabetes—and diabetics forty years ago who would have been taking insulin in very painful, less effective, and high-maintenance injections. Even thinking back to my own diagnosis and the years following, I took five plus shots per day for many years, before I got an insulin pump two years ago. With the technological advances making my life as a diabetic easier year by year, it’s hard not to feel grateful in the face of the suffering of earlier diabetics.
Perhaps the real reason I’m not crying as I write this is that I enjoy defying expectations. That’s what everyone expects diabetics to do on the anniversary of getting their chronic illness, I imagine: cry, pretend the day doesn’t exist, wallow in self-pity. That’s why it’s awkward to tell people I’m “celebrating” my diabetic “birthday” (to be fair, what is someone supposed to reply to that: "Congratulations!"?). It would be healthy to cry, especially since a diabetic can’t exactly say, “Well today is a special day, so I’ll just take a break from insulin today—it’ll be fine. No big.” It all makes sense, all the reasons to be sad today. I just made a decision a few years ago to actively recognize this day and ask my family and friends to celebrate it with me. I want to rejoice in the blessings I’ve received, in how healthy I am despite having diabetes, how much easier my disease is to manage today.
So year twelve of diabetes will start off on a positive note. My stuffed animal (or stuffed organ, technically, I suppose), Patty the Pancreas (a present from my mom when I had been recently diagnosed), and I will have lunch with my friends and celebrate all the trouble and all the joy this rather unlovable disease has brought into my life.
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