Week 8

aka, The Halfway Point of the semester.

Marked by a noticeable increase in general Honey Badger-ness towards being in school. I started out the semester giving my all, studying for hours and hours, overloading and overwhelming myself. Although I try to let go of needing to not only get an A, but a 100% A, the perfectionism is near-primal in me, and as such, hard to shake. In addition, I've been putting more pressure on myself as these grades will play a part in getting accepted to the grad school I want.

However, something happened Monday morning, aka First Day Of Week 8. I slid into my usual Chemistry class seat behind Girl Who Talks Too Loudly And Doesn't Know The Answer, next to Quieter Girl Who Is Really Funny But Hardly Ever Shows It, and I could feel something in the air. The class has thinned to what is, I assume, its fighting weight: after our first test, a small exodus has us down to about 45 students. We have the air of survivors, and while we spent the first half of the semester putting up with our Chem teacher's preference for replacing actual teaching with dated sexist jokes, now we're done tiptoeing around him.

(sample conversation - Me: "I'm sorry I'm a bit late on Wednesdays, I get here as fast as I can from work." Him: "Oh, I thought you were sipping cappuccinos with your sweetie and lost track of time." Me: "No. I'm a grown up with a job.")

I'm realizing that while I am halfway through this semester, I'm only 1/8th through all my post bac requirements, so the only way to survive this is to chill, a little. I had a Biology test and scored a 100 out of 104. My Bio teacher - who I adore - gently chastised me for missing 4 points (he knows my story, and has high expectations of me, which I appreciate). I, in return, laughed. Honey Badger don't care.

Front Bit

I ran into a fellow yoga teacher last Sunday at the store. We don't know each other particularly well, although I've always had a sense that I would like her a whole lot if we did, but our circles overlap enough that we're aware of what each other is up to, generally. One of the first things she said to me was "man, I'm so impressed with what you're doing."

I don't know if it was because I was feeling particularly worn out at that moment, or if I decided that the people closest to me are tired of hearing me complain so I haven't wanted to burden them with this, or if energetically she just seemed to understand, but I replied the truth in my soul to her, which is: every day I think about quitting. Every day.

It's not the school part. I like class, and as we've established, I'm a dork and I enjoy studying. It's not teaching my group classes, or teaching privately, or teaching anatomy weekends, or writing. I enjoy all of those things, individually; but at the moment, theyareallmashedupagainsteachothersoclosethatthereisbarelyamomenttobreathe.

Case in point: I forgot the word for foot yesterday. Really. I followed up by calling my client's core "your front bit."

The wave of momentum behind all this activity both holds me upright when I feel most likely to collapse, and pushes me forward to the next class, test, client, workshop, deadline. It seems out of my hands, like something happening to me, not because of me, and the vague outline of a goal I held a few months ago feels unrelated to this onslaught.

My free time has diminished to the point that people I used to see on a regular basis have become once-a-month catch-up friends. I miss them. I decided that the lion's share of my attention has to go to my growing nephews, and their even-more-worn-out parents, which means I see them once a week for a few hours. Several times a day, my dog gazes at me balefully, toy in mouth, a slow wag in her tail, hoping I might be convinced to come out from behind the computer, but more often than not she ends up discontentedly lying back down with a heavy sigh.

Am I complaining? I did this to myself, voluntarily, and I can undo it with the click of a mouse. (Quite literally - you can withdraw from classes online now. Ah, technology.) There are moments each day when I wonder what the hell I used to do with my time - if you can cram this much thisness into a day, was I just sitting around eating bon bons and watching reality tv dance competitions? But in the moments when I accept that this is just how things are for now, and that like everything else, this too shall pass, I lift my chin and pick up the next task.