Wish me luck!

I've been very, very spoiled for a long time now, and I fully realize that. While being a stay-at-home mom is possibly the least glamorous job in the world, it does have certain perks. For one, I can dabble however I please. I've tried scrapbooking, selling Tupperware, gardening, and then knitting, which finally stuck. My schedule is also incredibly flexible. Oh sure, the kids need routines, and that's great, but I'm not going to get fired if I'm behind on dusting the baseboards.

The problem is that the lack of focus is freeing and constricting all at the same time. While I have firmly enjoyed not being tied down to a certain vocation or extensive scheduling, it has also made me much more likely to be, well, a slacker. My little inattentive ADD brain really needs some kind of external structure to function well. (Okay, maybe to function at all.) I think that's why going back to school has been so great for me. I finally have a reason that I have to be somewhere and have certain things accomplished at a certain time. Of course, I have to admit that I'm still a total slacker when it comes to housework. I seem to have just enough free time left that I'm quite comfortable with heavy-handed procrastination.

All of that is about to change.

This semester, I am going to be taking twelve hours of classes, working as a tutor and Supplemental Instruction leader for twenty or so hours a week, and still trying to keep up with my three busy boys. Now, I fully realize you "normal" folks out there don't really think this schedule sounds too bad. Good for you. Consider this a virtual pat on the back. I, on the other hand, am vacillating between excitement and dread.

You see, I have lived so much of my life under a dark cloud of depression, and the fact that I'm actually accomplishing something tangible energizes me. Even when things are going well, staying home with the kids leaves me with very little to show for it because no matter how much I get done, almost all of it is undone by the end of the day. For someone prone to feeling worthless on the best of days, that cycle gets to be excruciatingly painful. I'm also hoping that a tighter schedule will motivate me to get more done. If I have less time to goof off, I'll goof off less. Right? (Oh, I certainly hope so.)

However, at the same time, I know that there is a delicate balance of structure that is just right for me. Too little, I waste time because I have so much time to waste. Too much, I have severe anxiety issues over never having quiet, alone time and eventually suffer from a total meltdown. So, with the new semester starting Monday, I am cautiously optimistic, praying that my schedule has just the right balance of what I want and what I need. I've got my Google calendar all color-coded so I can keep up with the kids' schedules and see what I need to do when as far as housework and homework are concerned. Tomorrow I'm going to get my notebooks all ready for my new classes. And Monday I'm going to take on the world. Keep your fingers crossed for me. I think I'll need it.

Oh, Sylvia

When choosing a topic for my research paper, I finally settled on Sylvia Plath's poetry. I know that sounds trite and so overdone, but I feel like I must. When I was in high school, some of my more literary girlfriends were bordering on obsessed with the tragedy of Sylvia Plath. They went on and on about Plath's brilliant expression of her pain in life, always talking about how they, too, would "eat men like air." I never took the bait. Honestly, I was far too busy plotting my own suicide attempts to be fascinated with the poet who stuck her head in an oven. Depression is very self-centered that way.

Now, almost twenty years later, I feel like I've conquered the demon that is Depression - or at least trapped him in a cage where I can poke him with a stick if he threatens to cause trouble. Now I feel like I have the distance I need to even approach Sylvia Plath. Now I've lived longer than seventeen years, and I understand more about the life of a wife and mother that Sylvia chronicled in much of her poetry. Now, I get it.

Don't get me wrong. I actually think some of her poetry is horrible and disjointed. I don't know that she would be so popular if she had lived, or even if she had died in a less spectacular fashion like a car accident or a heart attack. On the other hand, some of her poetry has a clarity and a brutal truth that is hard to find in the world today.

Also, I understand her. I understand not wanting to be alone, but sometimes feeling that men are more trouble than they're worth. I understand motherhood being the pinnacle of accomplishment and simultaneously being the shackles that hinder moving forward. I understand never feeling good enough, no matter what anyone tries to tell you.

I've been reading her journals, and I am struck by her overwhelming intelligence. (Supposedly, she had an IQ of around 160.) The journal is sprinkled with little pep talks she is constantly giving herself, trying to stay one step ahead of the demon. I find myself feeling strangely maternal towards this woman who would be around seventy-five if she were still with us. I want so badly to take her by the hand and tell her it will all be okay, that she is not the only person in the world that feels this way. Sometimes, that's all it takes - just knowing that you're not the only one.

So, even if five or six angst-ridden young women in my class choose to research Sylvia Plath, I don't care. Even if my instructor is sick and tired of reading about Plath's tortured soul, I'm doing it anyway. The truth is, they don't matter any more. This is between me and Sylvia now.