Family

I decided to post this one to blogspot specifically rather than share it with the world on myspace, namely because this will interest only my family. Er...I'm sure it would interest many of my friends, acquaintances, and my many blog fans whom I've never met, but who wants them talking?


It is 11:05 here. I have a big bluestarbucks mug (thanks to either Lindy or Caitlyn--I can't remember who gave it to me after all these years). It holds AT LEAST three cups of coffee at a go. As you can imagine, this suits me fine. Just fine. I'm halfway through it. Coffee is my water, people.

At home, it is 8am. I can imagine 8am at home perfectly. At school, students are bleary-eyed as they crest the ginormous (<--now officially in the dictionary, I might add) hill leading to the new and older buildings on top of campus. I would be rolling out of bed, rubbing old makeup away from my eyes with the palm of my naked hand and trying to remember my thoughts for class. Luther decided to enter the priesthood during a lightning storm, during which he called out, "Saint Anne help me!" Aristotle and Sylvia Plath. Body politic. Body politik? The political body governing the Italian States during the supposed but illegitimate Renaissance comprised the last effort of the Roman Catholic Church to exert her waning strength. Et cetera, et cetera. All of this would, with any luck, leave my lips in the appropriate classroom and in the general direction of the appropriate professor.

At home, coffee. No breakfast. Same at school as at home with mom. Mom, been up for awhile, writing an email, reading her news, sipping her coffee, and telling me I really ought to eat breakfast for the sake of my metabolism.

But that's not really how it is here. For one thing, nobody cares whether I eat or starve, save my...let's face it...plenty healthy--if inconsistent--appetite. Okay, untrue. Peter cares. He stuffs food down my mouth every opportunity he gets. The dear. Another thing: no class. Peter has class. The boys (Troy and Stephen, though not Alex) have class. I...have nothing. Nothing. Oh sure, I'm STILL reading up on Reformation and Renaissance (hah!) Europe, but not because I must do it.

It's amazing how much of my identity I tie to academics. Life out of school for me is hard, not because I don't have that safety cushion of supposed immaturity upon which to rest, but because I crave academia like I crave coffee. I need it. I need to write papers and learn historical facts and wonder, wonder, wonder about the way I'm living, those with whom and through whom I'm living, and damn't, whether or not this or that's a participle adjective or a verb.

So, I've applied for literally ten jobs at a couple universities in the area. Here's why I did so: 1) tuition break if I attend said university for grad program, 2) academic environment, 3) do I want to teach after all?

The pay's not bad, either. There's even one job that would allow me to help oversee an undergrad Women's Studies program within the greater English program at Boston University. I would...I would bask in that job. *lust*

As for Peter. Oh, Peter. Here's the thing about that fellow. I love him, I really do. I love that man. I respect him as much as I've respected any other man, and given Grandpa's legacy (to name just one), that's saying something. He's got integrity, people. Not an irresponsible bone in his body. And his idea of love is...the most romantic, most challenging concept I've ever encountered. But I can't TELL him I love him, you know? Can't say it until I've got a ring on my finger.

Oh how I want a ring on my finger. He has told me he wants to marry me. He has told me that we will be married soon (which for him translates into "Less than two years"). But he insists that it be a surprise to me, the engagement. That I not know the details of when it is coming. Finally I said to him, "Peter, I will not wait two more years until you leave seminary before I have a ring on my finger. I won't." But if we're talking like this about marriage, I ought to really have the ring. He treats me as is fiancee in every way but name. And I'd like that name, folks. I just would. What a relief it would be.

And if I have one MORE person from that seminary ask me how long we've been married...*sigh*

This frustration is common. It's true. Particularly frustrating at this point in my life since I've effectively put much of my life on hold to wait. Not by choice, but from necessity. I can't progress with much of my life until I am married. I don't want to be unmarried in grad school, for one thing. I'm at a crossroads in my life, and one path involves him and the other doesn't. The former path is viable and the latter isn't. But I can't start on that road, emotionally and otherwise, unless I have him with me in marriage. So I'm stagnating, waiting for him to meet me there. I'm ready to be married. Ready to get on with my life.

Ick. How girly this blog is.

Okay. I'm off to apply for some more jobs.

Administrative assistant ftw (for the win).

<3 M