is it possible to simultaneously feel good and bad about a facet of your life?
ok, this post might be a little silly. i feel mostly good and only a little... frustrated. but it's been a long time since i've written a "real" entry. so here goes.
if you had asked me during my first 2.5 years of college if i'd ever attend grad school, i would have laughed in your face and said not in a million years. and yet, here i am. 18 credits down, 24 to go. and ever since i started last september, i've felt validated time after time. just the deep, full sensation of city air filling my lungs everytime i walked the streets of chicago to class made me feel like i am truly in the right place. i am proud of myself for getting here. i really am.
and i've tried to put myself out on a limb whenever possible. i know i tend to be shy, sit in the back, not talk in class... but life's too short. and this is MY degree. my money, my hard work, my passion, my dream. MY degree. why waste it? so i tried to step up and be a leader in my literary magazine class. i tried to head up small group discussions whenever i could. i tried to give input in class (though i still tend to be quiet in class, hard as i'm trying to be more outspoken...) and time and time again i've been validated for it.
how could i NOT feel good about my place as a writer? i got into an MFA program for my poetry. i was published in last spring's Albion Review. i was nominated by my professors for the AWP young writers competition. i spent last semester as the Oyez Review marketing intern. i was a finalist for a fellowship to study in Prague, and was awarded a half-tuition scholarship to the summer program because of it. i read my poetry at the mid-year student reading. i was asked to participate in the national library week celebration at Roosevelt by reading my poetry. i am being published in this summer's After Hours and this fall's Our Time Is Now literary magazine. i got straight A's both semesters. i have a 4.0 for the first time in my life.
this sounds like i'm bragging. i'm not. i swear. i'm proud of myself, sure. but not bragging.
cause at the same time, i can NOT write a poem. i've tried to write two in the last two days. they suck. i feel like i'm writing the same shit over and over again. i've REVISED a lot of poems this year. but my collection is not getting bigger. i have literally written about 4 new poems since i started grad school. i feel GOOD about them. but 4? honestly? what happened to jack's class when i'd write and write and end up with 20 poems to put in my chapbook? i'm going to be in a whole lot of trouble when i have to do my thesis....
how can i feel so good about what i'm doing? so confident in my choice to go to grad school, to be a poet, so sure i'm doing the right things? and at the same time, so frustrated with my lack of writing? like i'm STILL coming up short somehow? i suppose if i were satisfied with myself i'd stop trying... maybe this residual frustration is the only way i can keep going.
