023: am I caffeinated right now...?

I am really stressed.

Sometimes when I’m stressed I forget to control my tongue, my feelings, my need for caffeine/strawberries/cake/M&Ms/peanut butter.

I talk to myself (as Cristin pointed out) (glad I could entertain) and shake my head fast and go “rrrrrrrrrggghh!” and “aaaahhhhhhh!” and “wait—what?!” and “I CAN’T HANDLE MY LIFE” and “WHY IS IT NOT WORKING”

It’s quite a display.

I feel like I need to apologize to the world for being a sassy, needy tornado lately.

I am really stressed.

But that is not an excuse.

I’m sorry.

Consider me entertainment?

(Valerie, thanks for the impromptu chai.)

022: carte.

I’m working on a piece for my memoir writing class. It involves maps. And oceans, and geology, and forests, and roads, and skin.

You can’t check out oversized books, so I stack them and open their glossy pages on a big table to look at them all. Spreads: oceans, longitudes, keys, timelines, tectonic plates moving under leagues of sea. I want to press my hands into the deep sea floor, my back against the continents’ subterranean walls. Soar over everything, plunge into everything.

Writing this feels like trying to climb a mountain with my feet bare.

I’m just a human.

021: oh snap.

Because 2:40 a.m. the morning of a final is the only time to blog.

COME AT ME, LOGIC.

*

I’m leaving in four days.

I won’t be back for a year.

The reality will not sink in until I am halfway home on the highway. Maybe not until July. Or August. Whenever it comes, I’ll break.

I’m starting to pack up my room, discard old papers, clear out dusty corners, pile clothes into boxes.

Where has my sophomore year gone?

Time feels like a skipping stone. I remember moments when the year smacked against the water.

The rest of it—air. 

[interim: life is dragging me via lasso through the dirt on my face]

...yeah.

I am eight days behind on this project...something I swore would not happen when I started. As it is, however, once you get behind by one day, then all of a sudden you are behind by four days, and it just goes downhill from there.

My life has been absolutely. godawful. insane. these past few weeks. This semester is my hardest yet, academically, even though I'm taking fewer credits than I was in the fall. (16 instead of 18.) I could barely stay on top of all the work during the normal part of the semester. ENTER FINALS! AND DANCE MIN PERFORMANCES! And you are dead. There is no hope for successful completion of everything that must be done.

So, I'm strugglin' a bit. I've sold my soul to dance rehearsals for at least two solid weeks, and as a result my schoolwork has had to fall by the wayside. Now, as I'm finally opening my books again, it's kind of smacking me in the face that, uh, we only have three more days of classes...? And I have three papers due on Tuesday that I am not close to done with yet...? Not to mention three other papers for two other classes...? And let's not even mention the fact that I have exams...?

Yeah.

My strategy thus far has been a combination of (a) working little by little on whatever I have time for, hopefully making continual progress along the way, and (b) fully denying the amount of work I have to get done. It's working really well. Meaning, I'm screwed. Fully and royally screwed.

Anyway, the point of this post is to say that I apologize to my loyal readers for not catching up with this blog. It has, quite simply, been entirely impossible. But now that my performances are over, I intend to catch up over the next few days. Writing posts for this blog is an excellent form of procrastination, so, I assure you, it will happen.

In the mean time, here's hoping I survive the last week and a half of this semester, and come out the other end with (a) smashing good grades (ha) (hahaha) (sob), (b) enough friend-love in my heart to warm me all the way to Oxford in the fall, and (c) having had enough fun so that finals don't take over my soul and kill me. (I'm already accomplishing this. Two dance performances, Daughter concert, and biking to the beach all in one weekend? Can I stay in this fairyland forever?!)

Here's hoping.

And then comes summer.

Just kidding! Summer isn't coming this year! Nope! Haha! Neverrrr!