Fluffernutter asked me a few weeks ago what I do to have fun, what I do that’s enjoyable to me, apart from anything or anyone else.
I really have no idea.
Between school and work and the boys, it’s very rare that I get to do anything fun. I haven’t seen the Castration Committee in months. Every time there has been an offer for girl time, I’ve had to decline because of other commitments. I am constantly in process of writing some paper or doing some homework—obviously I haven’t written here (or for my own enjoyment) in months. Stories and characters I’d like to be working on sit impatiently in the back of my mind, frozen mid-thought and waiting for the spare time I will need to devote to them.
I’ve been sick. It took months to get over my thyroid debacle of last year. I blew the discs in my neck again and am eight or more weeks into another herniation. The muscle spasms and nerve pain can be enough to stop me dead in my tracks, or to wake me from a few hours of sleep.
It’s not just that I’m physically sedentary; I feel emotionally sedentary, too. I love my sons. I love Rango. But I seem to spend a lot of time on my own, waiting for responses and engagement and activity to get me moving again. They spend a lot of time waiting for me to finish whatever I’m working on.
I told Jinks that I feel like I have worked my way deeper into the Great Rut I started crawling from in 2010. I have no idea who I am outside the constraints of mother and student and employee. I really have no clue who Stephanie is, and it sometimes freaks me out when I hear someone call me by name.
I am 2 ½ classes away from graduation. By the end of July, I will have completed my bachelor’s degree after years of trying to get my act together. Until then, there is one more exam, a 15-page synthesizing paper about my degree in Liberal Studies, and two more classes that haven’t started yet. And there’s still work and home and my sons who need an active, engaged mom to help them navigate their own lives.
I am trying just to get through. The best I can do is to keep plodding away, to ignore the dirty house and the clutter that seems to multiply every week. I am resigned to the fact that this will continue to be my life for a while longer.
After graduation? I have no idea.
I hope to have some time to breathe. I hope to have time to figure out what it is that I want to do, not just what I need to do. I hope to find the part of me that will enjoy whatever that is.
But for now, I’m still plodding, methodically trying to keep a handle on everything and not lose myself completely in the process.
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