Possession

I was having a horrible Tuesday night.  I know how to save myself in situations like that–distraction, occupation, company–but I’d let it go too far and found myself sitting on the edge of my bed in tears trying to think of something to do and feeling that everything was too much effort.  I didn’t want to read Remains of the Day, I didn’t want to watch TV, I didn’t want to go for a walk, I didn’t want to do art, and I certainly didn’t want to study.  Eventually, I forced myself to grab a new book, unopened, recently purchased for two dollars at a half-price books warehouse sale.

I happened, thank goodness, to reach for A.S. Byatt’s Possession.  I bought the book without knowing a thing about it besides the mention on the back cover that the main character was a scholar of English literature.  After the first paragraph, with its rich description of a dusty antique book, I wasn’t crying anymore.  By the second page I remembered, through Roland Mitchell’s obvious passion, the way I feel about literature and how excited I am to move forward with my education.  Byatt writes, “The individual appears for an instant, joins the community of thought, modifies it and dies; but the species, that dies not, reaps the fruit of his ephemeral existence” (6).  That’s what I want to do–what I’m going to do–and there’s nothing in my way besides the paralysis of frustration.  Because I’m not in any English classes right now, I need occasional reminders of the way studying literature makes me feel, and the appeal of scholarship in general.  Possession gives a far-from-rosy picture of the practicalities of an academic life, to be sure; Roland is more-or-less unemployed and financially dependent on his secretary girlfriend.  However, the only thing that seems certain in Roland’s life (thus far) is his fascination with the work he does.  It’s worth living on the edge of poverty, working for an unencouraging taskmaster, and staying with a woman he may not still love to be a member of the academic community.

I need to remember that it’s worth it.  It’s worth the stress and the labor and the occasional tears.  It’s worth opening myself to rejection and reaching high.  Opening Possession on Tuesday night reminded me of what I want and what it’s worth, and that makes everything else easier.  It reminded my of my “own huge ignorance” and the life I hope will make it slightly less-huge (10).  It made me actually want to work on my personal statement, and that, my friends, is quite an accomplishment.

Unbearable burdens

Imagine a person in the middle of his adult life, who has worked hard, raised a family, and built a stable world for the people he loves, sometimes at the expense of long cherished hopes and dreams.   Now imagine a person at the cusp of her adult life, with hopes and dreams newly minted, and suppose that man has been the means of creating that young woman, and of carrying her to the path where she can begin to walk on her own.  He is in pain over his vanishing dreams, and and has lost his own hope and optimism in the bleakness he perceives as his future.  He loves that young woman, and has never been able to stand her sadness.  Imagine that his unhappiness focuses itself into a fear that her potential will be left unfulfilled–that instead of  leaping off the cliff and soaring to the sun, she will fall, fall, fall into the gray abyss.  He sees her imperfections, her weaknesses, her burdens, as barriers that will hold her down, like boulders chained to her ankles.  He is terrified because she’s so close to success and happiness, but, like every other human being ever created, she could piss it all away in an instant with a few poor decisions.  And he’s spent his last twenty years as writer, director, and producer of her life–he can’t believe that she can act the scene without him.

The young woman loves him, has no other gods before him.  His opinion is her everything.  In that, she is still a child–she lives her life for him before she lives it for herself.  Can you see the impossibility of it?  Anything less than perfection may bar her from achieving her potential, and will cause for her one day the same pain he’s feeling now.  Trying isn’t good enough…if results aren’t achieved, then clearly she was not trying hard enough and nothing has been gained.  “He won’t be happy again,” she thinks, “until I’m a talented athlete.  Until I smile all the time.  Until I lose the weight.  Until I fill every minute with productive activity.  He won’t be at peace unless I elevate my life from ‘pretty damn good except for the few rough patches’ to ‘divine perfection’.”  To please her god, she has to transcend her humanity.

What unbearable pressure we place on one another!  How can any human being fulfill the expectations of being another human’s god, without faltering, showing weakness, or committing error?  How can anyone take on the burden of fulfilling another person’s dreams and living their hopes without stifling her own plans in the process?  When you love someone too deeply, they become to you something that they cannot ever be.  They mean more to you than they mean to themselves–and when the illusion fails and they can’t keep up the pretense of being that thing anymore, the world feels like its shaking to pieces beneath your feet.

Random blues

I’m having one of those days that I’m bumming for no reason. I could blame it on any of a number of things–back to work after a long weekend, didn’t like what the scale told me this morning, almost stepped on a dead baby bird, weed-whipped for 6 hours, smashed my thumb in a door, misplaced my keycard for work, Angel still doesn’t have his soul back, etc.–but I know it wouldn’t be legit. I’m just sad. I cried twice today, once when I hurt myself (but that was more whimpering than crying and I was alone, thank god) and once in the shower at the gym after an awful workout. I can’t let on, though, because a few days ago I was going on and on about how positive and upbeat and normal I am and how Dad can stop trying to “fix” my problems, because I don’t have any problems anymore. Phantom sadness would set off the fatherly lecture and anxiety cycle in a major way. So I’ll just wait it out. I guess that’s what I really mean when I say I’m positive and normal–not that I don’t get down, or even get down for no appreciable reason, but that I’m aware that it will blow over and everything will be peachy once more.

As an addendum to yesterday’s post: I definitely had a moment today when, pulling on my leather work gloves, I imagined how much more badass it would be if it were a falconer’s glove. I didn’t run with that particular fantasy, but it reminded me strongly of D.Q. and the good old days of my sad, strange youth.