living the grit

I have had a revelation. Would you like to know?

Grad school is a job.

(Maybe I should've been clued in by a tuition waiver and stipend. Or the fact that people talk about grad students not having a life. Or the prospect of teaching fourteen fresh-faced teenagers. Or . . . ).

Do I have to come back? It's just that the loneliness and stress are hitting and I know they said this would be hard, but - well. I guess these are the adulthood growing pains.

And I will say this: I know the best is not past, and much good is ahead.

It just feels a little dreary right now.

*****

What makes it all harder to return to is that I just had 4 days off. Which were marvelous. I spent them with my favorite guy, and we went to used bookstores and watched good movies and hiked and talked and ate ice cream. And I didn't think about school work at all. In fact, I think I sort of forgot all about it for a while.

It's good to be with people who make you laugh.

*****

And it's strange, because of all the people I miss I think my mom is maybe at the top a lot of the time. I remember the little kid needing-mommy feeling, but this is a different take on it. But the older I get, the closer I feel to my mother, and the more I need her. I need to cook with her and watch the way she slices cantaloupe. I need to show her decorating pictures from Southern Living. I need to go to Macy's with her and hit up the sales. I need to sit on her bed after lunch while she reads and absorb all her stories about boys and friends and God and the after-college years so I'll know that life goes on.

Most of all, I need to absorb her kindness and joy and love. Because she is my mother and the only way I know of being a woman and something about being her daughter roots me and if she thinks I'm doing ok, well then maybe I am ok.

Wendy: What about your mother?

Peter Pan: Haven't got a mother.

Wendy: No wonder you were crying.