Eeyore or Piglet?
I find myself on the edge of so many endings in my life, and so many new beginnings. Six weeks left on a main chapter, then a short intercalary, and then a new act, even more than one, begins. I wondered a week ago if I would still maintain a sense of wonder about Philadelphia and the prospect of leaving does contain momentary regrets, although nothing sufficient to keep me here. Perhaps I'll come back for a weekend once a year if I stay on the east coast but aside from that I will be happy to move onward.
The plot lines that describe my time seem suddenly fleeting and I both hesitate to move on and strain eagerly in the yoke, hoping to press forward a little sooner. Anticipatory melancholy, I think, is about the best way to put it. There are too many uncertain edges right now to have complete confidence in my future months, but enough milestones assured that provide points of focus and clarity. The gaps just need some filling in. Some form of employment, housing, german class, plane tickets, summer league, spring league, invitations. Cake. Vows.
It is obvious to me tonight (as it was a week ago, I believe) that my contentment with being in Pennsylvania was contingent upon my prompt return to Chicago and now that the day is much farther away, uncertainly assured, my composure has fallen off a bit and I find myself eager to slip back into a gentle despair about class and grad school and the evident truth, as I have come to realize in the last two weeks, that I have a snowball's chance in hell of seeing Ethan more than on extended school breaks for at least the next two years. A fate I do not wish to contemplate. One I hoped never to write of here, if only for the avoidance of pathetic sympathies. We have made choices and thus I cannot complain. I could choose differently if I truly wanted to. This is what I have learned from Economics, from Ethan, perhaps the finest lesson. Action reveals preference, however conscious we are of all the factors in play.
Richard has taken a moment here and there this year to teach me points of advertising too, tantalizing hints into the mass psychology that marketers take advantage of. The way to present information so that the subject will infer connections that you can legally protest you did not make explicit. To use blinking lights in commercials to foster memory in the consumer. I wish I could use these tricks upon myself, often, walk around under a strobe so as to better grasp the little things that will escape me over the coming months, little things that are the bread and butter of life, the yin and the yang of sanity, recollection and hope.
My anticipatory melancholy appears to be more strongly weighted on the latter than the former and I suppose that every moment I emphasize one or the other element more strongly. Tonight, despite the ease of preparing for the current week which brings its own great challenges and joys, I am pulled into the state of a mournful attendant, watching the familiar and hence the comforting begin the final descent into nothingness. I do know that there is a brighter future coming (there always is, it seems) and that new doors are soon to open for which I have been waiting many years. And my words belie the relief I feel at the prospect of finishing the program I have come to contemn and leaving the odd silence of the place I reside. The past weekend was spent celebrating hope, achievement, promise, expectation, and joy, and the realization that I have turned into my mother and will cry from now on at any vaguely emotional event. I'm really just a sap at heart, and a sap should be just as good as crying in celebration as decrying the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. In the words of Hugh Grant, from now on I intend to be impressively happy.
The plot lines that describe my time seem suddenly fleeting and I both hesitate to move on and strain eagerly in the yoke, hoping to press forward a little sooner. Anticipatory melancholy, I think, is about the best way to put it. There are too many uncertain edges right now to have complete confidence in my future months, but enough milestones assured that provide points of focus and clarity. The gaps just need some filling in. Some form of employment, housing, german class, plane tickets, summer league, spring league, invitations. Cake. Vows.
It is obvious to me tonight (as it was a week ago, I believe) that my contentment with being in Pennsylvania was contingent upon my prompt return to Chicago and now that the day is much farther away, uncertainly assured, my composure has fallen off a bit and I find myself eager to slip back into a gentle despair about class and grad school and the evident truth, as I have come to realize in the last two weeks, that I have a snowball's chance in hell of seeing Ethan more than on extended school breaks for at least the next two years. A fate I do not wish to contemplate. One I hoped never to write of here, if only for the avoidance of pathetic sympathies. We have made choices and thus I cannot complain. I could choose differently if I truly wanted to. This is what I have learned from Economics, from Ethan, perhaps the finest lesson. Action reveals preference, however conscious we are of all the factors in play.
Richard has taken a moment here and there this year to teach me points of advertising too, tantalizing hints into the mass psychology that marketers take advantage of. The way to present information so that the subject will infer connections that you can legally protest you did not make explicit. To use blinking lights in commercials to foster memory in the consumer. I wish I could use these tricks upon myself, often, walk around under a strobe so as to better grasp the little things that will escape me over the coming months, little things that are the bread and butter of life, the yin and the yang of sanity, recollection and hope.
My anticipatory melancholy appears to be more strongly weighted on the latter than the former and I suppose that every moment I emphasize one or the other element more strongly. Tonight, despite the ease of preparing for the current week which brings its own great challenges and joys, I am pulled into the state of a mournful attendant, watching the familiar and hence the comforting begin the final descent into nothingness. I do know that there is a brighter future coming (there always is, it seems) and that new doors are soon to open for which I have been waiting many years. And my words belie the relief I feel at the prospect of finishing the program I have come to contemn and leaving the odd silence of the place I reside. The past weekend was spent celebrating hope, achievement, promise, expectation, and joy, and the realization that I have turned into my mother and will cry from now on at any vaguely emotional event. I'm really just a sap at heart, and a sap should be just as good as crying in celebration as decrying the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. In the words of Hugh Grant, from now on I intend to be impressively happy.
posted by trophywife at 9:31 PM
2 Comments:
contemn? that's an interesting word.
it's a very greek-dictionary word. those early 20th century brits love it.
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