I am drugging myself with too many books and too many theories, and too many obligations. Too much underlining, summarizing, note-taking. Teaching, helping, editing, typing, debating. Too many politics, too many conferences I'm supposed to go to... Too many acquaintances who aren't ever going to be friends, not really.
This afternoon, pick up a packet from my professor; finish typing up Nader's speech and start editing; write an essay about progress and what Wendell Berry and my classmates think about it. Email all of this to somebody or another.
Tomorrow: reflect and write an essay. Print it out and bring it to the library. Punch holes in it and stick it in the class binder. Fuck around for awhile. Attend a newspaper meeting at 5. Attend a meeting of some people who are trying to organize a 5,000-person peace rally in downtown Olympia (and don't think for one moment that they won't do it...). Read: all the stuff that's in the packet I'm going to pick up today. Oh, and I ought to start working on my next EchoSiberia (dot-com) article.
Friday: tutoring and meetings. Saturday: responding to classmates' writings. Sunday: tutoring some more, and going to a wine-and-cheese party (a non-pretentious one) on campus someplace. Don't forget to pick up a bottle of wine before then. Means I'll have to go to Safeway tonight to pick up some lambrusco.
I finished all the readings for my class the other day. I had nothing more to read. I completed the assignments. I had nobody else's words to think about. Was having trouble with the disc of Nader's speech. And I nearly had a heart attack. Nothing to do...? Nothing?
I BEG you, dear professors, dear co-workers and colleagues: ask me to do anything, any assignment... you want me to figure out nuclear physics and write you a paper about it by tomorrow? Fucking fine. Just don't ask me to slow down. Don't ask me to stop. Don't tell me to relax. Don't tell me to put the coffee down. Don't let me run out of books to read, ever, ever again. Don't tell me it's okay, I don't have to type up Nader's speech, make copies of it, and give it to you, because YES, I fucking DO have to.
Every time I slow down, every time I realize I have to go home at the end of the day, every time I have no book to read, every time I've got a few minutes to NOT DO ANYTHING -- while I'm in the shower, while I'm watching TV -- it fucking hurts. No meeting to be at in an hour? Fuck that shit. Sign me up for another organization or something. Fuck, just tell me a fucking STORY or something; please just keep my brain occupied.
I'm afraid to feel anything of my own anymore.
There are another five hours between now and my class this evening. I dread the thought of filling them up; because what if I have, like, five minutes free, and what if I start thinking about sad things, or frustrating things, or the motherfucking unfairness of it all? What if I start to cry, and I can't stop, and what if I can't compose myself in time to go to class, and what if I can never, ever stop? What if some night, like last night, I can't sleep and I feel this loneliness creeping in -- and what if some night, I can't just put myself to sleep by trying to remember every word of all the prayers from Bible classes? What if I never, ever stop feeling this?
I can't let that happen this time.
I'm NOT going to be a college dropout -- like last time.
I'm not going to be homesick. I'm not going to be depressed. I'm going to stop typing this, save it, link it, and commence typing up the last part of the Nader speech. I'm going to not think, ever, not even for a minute; I'm airtight, gahddammit.
Let Ivan Illich be my drug.
Fuck it all.
~Helena*