Resistance in 2016: The Year of New Beginnings

It has been a while since I last wrote. It has been a strange spring, and so perhaps this is why. Even writing right now feels a little painful. I feel strangely self-conscious, like someone is watching me type over my shoulder.

I have been strangely self-conscious, anxious, different. The pain of making a decision. There were signs that it would be painful even back in the fall. I wanted to get accepted so much, but I wasn’t necessarily visualizing what it would be like to get there. Now I’m here, having accepted (New York :), and yet … not feeling as incredible as I had assumed I would be.

It’s a big change. A big commitment. And it’s painful in a way that when I go to write about it like right now something in me falters, twists, turns away. For two reasons, I think:

a. I think I feel guilty for complaining. I wanted this so much, and it happened, and I “should” be grateful. (My therapist says there are no shoulds. I agree.)

b. I feel spoiled. I live a totally privileged life, in a nice house in Brooklyn doing work i have chosen and enjoy, while others are struggling and starving and dying, and here I am, complaining, not being grateful, even having a therapist, which is such a luxury. It all feels melodramatic.

It is weird to me how difficult it has become to express myself. I used to do it so easily, and look so forward to those sessions, where I would sit at the keyboard in front of a blank PB or OD page, ready to pour out my feelings. And now … I feel strange. Like every word I have to say and am about to write is superfluous, melodramatic.

Even when I go to the therapist, I feel the same. “What is the point of talking? It’s all the same.”

Sometimes I’ve felt bouts of anxiety, sometimes of emptiness this spring. But not all the time. There have been wonderful times too – the ones where I’m in the lab completely engaged and grateful for the research I’m doing, which is interesting and feels like the right path. Or the new friends I’ve made, who I like so much. The deepending of old friendships – with Bh from school, with Id in California. I am so, so happy about those.

And I’m happy for Dan too. Sometimes I think that if I didn’t have such a vision of who I want to be with that I’ve held on for so long, I bet I’d be with Dan. I enjoy so much spending time with him, and talking to him, and he is the only person, I feel, that I can be 100% myself with. Sometimes I want to hug him and not let go. I like how loving he is, and the way he responds to me. But he goes against the image I’ve held because he is confused about his own life and sometimes annoyingly passive about changing, which he blames on anxiety, which is fine and probably true, but I am so used to doing things to change things that don’t work, and it would frustrate me to be with someone who isn’t like that. So I let it go and we are friends. And I really enjoy his presence in my life. And about his life too, he is changing it, in his own way, at his own pace, which has been really nice to see lately.

I have forgotten about all my hobbies. Reading, painting, writing. I didn’t have time for a long time, and now I do, and something feels dysfunctional in the return. Like I forgot how to make time for them. There is a self-consciousness in that too.

I hate this entry because I feel that it makes me sound absolutely dysfunctional right now. What happened to the Nat I used to know? The one with all the stories and the emotions and the whirlwind of experiences? And yet, I love my life right now too in a way that I cannot describe here. The quiet. The engaged stability of work. The bit of calm (possibly before the storm of grad school).

I think I am afraid of grad school. I am afraid it will be so hard, and I will drown. I will feel stupid in class discussions and remain quiet because it will all go over my head. I will not be able to keep up. I will be too ADD for the extensive readings. (Oh, this feels good to write all of a sudden! It must be really, really true and the previous things a warmup!) I am afraid I will have no life because I will always be engaged in the process of trying to catch up with the rest of the class. And in my loneliness, I am afraid I will get depressed. And that I won’t notice, and my 30s will fly by, and then I will have wasted this wild and precious life without even realizing. And in being such a loner I will also never meet anyone. Or maybe I will and he will be American and I will forever stay here, which is fine if I’m happy, but then I would have consciously turned away from the other path of being near my family, making memories with my sisters, spending time with my parents …

This is such a depressing view of the time to come. I bet it will come and it will not be like this at all. I bet it will actually be interesting and engaging and I will make new friends and I will be good about time management and still have my weekends. Because I will treat grad school like a 9-to-5 job. And this school is not Harvard. It’s a good school, but I don’t necessarily think everyone else will be so much better and smarter than me. I think there will be some adjustments, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be like I described it in the previous paragraph. But that is my fear. Those are all my fears, rising up, gaining strength and power when considered all together, and becoming a terrible monster. And since it was all in my control, and the monster birthed by my own dreams and choices, there is also some responsibility and guilt attached to that terrible vision.

The reality is that if it’s really that bad, if I really can’t do it, I can always quit. And get another job, go back to publishing. Get a job at a nonprofit with the experience I’ve gained in the past year! So there IS a way out. But during the times of terror, that way out isn’t believable. It feels like I have singlehandedly destroyed my life.

What makes it worse is the meta-worry. “Well if I’m worrying so much about it maybe it’s a sign that it’s not the right decision. I should quit now.” But no, I should not quit now. I should give it a year and then decide whether, I , personally, would like to renew for another year of graduate school. This is the conclusion I came to yesterday: What if I break it down in small pieces I can be excited about, and not think of it as a big, looming 5 years full of traps and demons?

I guess it’s not just the thing itself. It really is about choosing a path that keeps me here, away from family in Greece. And the thought of what if I was supposed to be there and I ruined my life because I didn’t choose it? As if there is one right path, and I didn’t choose it because I was scared of the change and the adjustment that I’d need to make.

Could that be true? Not the vision of the one path, but that I didn’t choose it because I was afraid? I had the idea of applying for a master’s in London, and going there for a year and doing that as kind of trial, to see if I could live there, where I’d be closer to Greece and see fam more often. And being away for only a year would not mean that I’d lose my green card. But I didn’t do it. Why didn’t I do it? I had that thought but did not pursue it. I wonder why. .... It was a more costly option, less practical, for one. I remember that. But what else? Because if I really wanted that, I would have done it. But I didn’t. Why? Maybe I didn’t really want it. I don’t even enjoy my visits to Greece whenever I go, but I realize that’s bc I’m stuck at parents’ house 24:7. But the thing I do enjoy is that effect of the habitual togetherness you feel in a collectivist country like Greece. The lifestyle. The connectedness. I bet you if I had that here, I would probably be fine. But it seems like I’ve struggled with it for years.

I sense resistance in writing again, so I’m going to stop. xoxooxo.

love,
me