2.12.04: I Want To Decide Between Survival and Bliss

In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

I Want To Decide Between Survival and Bliss

February 12, 2004

Two more days until I’m free. It doesn’t seem real yet. It will seem real next Wednesday, when I pick up the phone to call my manager and see what my schedule is for the next week, and then I realize that I don’t have a schedule for next week, at least not at that store, and then I do the Happy Pink-Collar Dance of Joy. (Hopefully I will realize that I don’t work there anymore before I’m actually talking to my manager over the phone, because he will no doubt mock my stupidity mercilessly. And who could blame him?)

I am elated and terrified at the notion of being free. I am like a stupid little bird (a finch, I think, or maybe a parakeet) who, instead of taking advantage of the open door (which was opened by its owner, who was suddenly stricken with severe neck cramps and insulin shock and had to run next door for help), hovers indecisively on the threshold of its prison, desperately trying to build up the courage to soar out into the unknown. And then the stupid little bird spreads its wings and takes the plunge, remembering belatedly that it has clipped wings and cannot fly, and then it splatters into the ground at approximately 30 miles per hour and makes a nasty mess on the carpet. That is what I am like.

I am also terrified at the notion of graduating from my little community college. I know it’s a dorky little suburban pseudo-school filled with fat nursing students and goof-offs who flunked out of the University, but I’ve grown quite fond of the place over the past couple of years. It’s where I met my husband, after all. I’m sad to leave it. I’m also afraid that my graduation isn’t real, that it’s a horrible practical joke perpetrated by the deans and the powers-that-be, that one of those college notices I get in the mail is going to be a revocation of my degree. (And I don’t think revocation is a word. See? I don’t deserve a degree! Not even a piddly AA!) Every time I open a notice from my college, I grow sweaty and shivery with the fear that it will contain nothing but the words, “HA HA HA! STUPID GIRL!” and then the word “DEGREE” with a giant red X over it. I’m not sure how I’d react to that. Being a cynic, I’d probably just sigh and mumble, “See? I told you so, Romy!” And then I’d curl up naked in the bathtub and run cold water over my back until I died of hypothermia. It would be a fitting way to go.

I really don’t see how the college can allow me to graduate. Don’t they know how many times I skipped class just for the hell of it? Don’t they know how often I heckled my teachers? Don’t they know how I wrote poetry in Physics class? If nothing else, the tear stains on every single math final I ever took must show that I’m not ready to be unleashed on the world just yet. I think I need a few more decades of incubation. Please?

I am in a somewhat fragile state of mind these days, as you can probably tell. I feel like I’m walking on eggshells, like the universe is going to suddenly change its mind about letting me be independent and successful and happy and sweep everything away with a giant cosmic ha! I’m such a pessimist; I can never just sit back and enjoy life when everything’s going well, because I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop. This is what a bug’s entire life must be like—aah! beware the shoe! I feel compelled to prove to the universe and society that I am indeed capable of success, that I am not just full of hot air, that I am really truly honest-Native-American going to do what I say I’m going to do. And just feeling that way scares me—how can I possibly do anything? I’m an idiot! No, really, I am! Don’t expect anything from me! Would a truly capable person spend her morning eating potato chips and cookies and watching Moesha reruns?

Sooner or later, the universe is going to get impatient with this whimpering little dormouse of a human being, and it is going to give me a GIANT kick in the ass—maybe something large will fall on my head, or God will come down in the form of a drill sergeant and give me a good dressing-down. Are you ready to prove yourself, soldier? The grace period’s over, beeyatch! Not that a drill sergeant would ever say beeyatch. And not that I believe in God. But anyway.

I am doing everything I can to distract myself from my imminent independence. I have rearranged the apartment about five hundred and twelve times, I have built about five pointless new sites, I have cleaned the bathroom and the kitchen and the bedroom closet, I have even started writing fanfic again. I have bitten my nails down to the quicks, I have pulled half of my hair out by the roots, I have picked at my skin until my face looks like a close-up map of the Moon, and I think my teeth are loose with worry. I am petrified. I am ecstatic. Soon I will settle on one mood or the other, but for now I am the Mood Swing Queen Extraordinaire, and you are just going to have to put up with that. Now excuse me while I go rearrange the living room.