Walls, Dinners, and Leaves

You're in a new place, living a new life. You constantly have tons to do--the endless readings, needing to be ready for class discussions, papers to write. You have endless opportunities presented to you to do exactly what you've always wanted to do--actively work to make the world a better place. And you take them--how could you not?! Then suddenly, you find yourself in the middle of a huge fight, against people telling you to your face that they don't think you're equal. It's nothing personal, they hope you can still be friends, but they don't think you're deserving of the same rights as they are, that deep down they feel you are morally repugnant, and they are willing to spend tens of millions of dollars to prove it.

You find yourself in this fight, not where you are comfortable. Not in a place with your long time friends and family around you. True, with a strong number of budding new friendships, but not the time-tested, weathered ones that you can truly lean on. Not in a familiar place, with comforting changing leaves, soothing rainy days and invigorating crisp ones. But in a place with alien looking palms stretching starkly to the sky, and only bright, intense days. The rays of the sun call for constant energy, but little true relaxation.

And little by little you feel yourself losing pace. The water rises, centimeter by centimeter (which is odd, seeing as it never rains). The readings go from being read thoroughly before class, to read quickly before class, to now and then not being read before class, for those professors who don't cold call. Readings begin to take twice as long, because concentration comes hard, as well as staying awake. You hit rough spots in class and don't feel quite like the competent intelligent person you were convinced you were after the rousing convocation speeches. Exams begin to loom on the horizon, and with them the feeling that you should be doing more to prepare, even now. You're not doing enough. You don't remember the last time you got six hours of sleep. Your shoulders and neck turn into knots, and the headache from the stress, lack of sleep and poor blood flow becomes somewhat constant. The enthusiasm with which you tackled everything just a couple weeks ago is fading fast.

You tell yourself, it's just until the election. You're tired, and you're stretched a bit too thin, but the end is in sight. The hours of phone banks, debates, meetings, stress, and angst will be over on November 5th. All you need to do is find a way to push through these last two weeks, just stick it out, and you'll wake up November 5th with fewer obligations. But until then, every moment has to be productive. Every second has to be working towards the larger goals, whether it be school, new friendships, old friendships, or justice for someone somewhere.

And finally, fuck it. You just can't do it.

This is all a long and dramatic way of saying I really learned the value of taking a little time off this week. Friday rolled around, and I just couldn't do anything. No matter how much I wanted to insist on trying to write, read, work, or whatever, I was simply not going to be any good to anyone, anywhere. So after class ended, I caught the first bus home, slept for three hours in the middle of the day, then took the evening off with an amazing dinner out with some new friends, and some good old hockey. Today was back to work for most of the day, phone banking and school work, then a movie with some other new friends. (W...it was OK...given the subject matter, they didn't have to make a phenomenal movie, and it showed.)

Earlier this week I was talking to one of the faculty members at school, and he was asking how things were going. I said they were going OK, I was pretty tired and stressed from all the election work, and was looking forward to the election being over. He commented that yeah, it's a hard thing to learn how to balance yourself, and that it's not just now for the election, but it will always be this way. I didn't think too hard about it right at that time (too busy, ya know) but I realize now that he's right. It's not as though after this election there won't be anything else to work towards, no other causes that I'm passionate about, people who need help, justice that needs to be fought for. That's never going to happen in my lifetime. So, for this election, however it comes out, I'm certainly taking away the lesson that I'm only one person, and I'll need to work on my skills a bit when it comes to picking and choosing where and how thin to spread myself. It's a good lesson, that I'm grateful to have begun to learn without (hopefully) any consequences worse than stress headaches and sleep deprivation.

An added bonus is that in taking a bit of time off this weekend, I've gotten to begin to connect more with those budding new friendships. At school, it's been connecting and realizing that, while not everyone has quite the number of obligations I've committed myself too, we all have had our moments of feeling like the class dunce. We're all feeling overstressed, and we're all feeling like we're hitting a bit of a hump. At the election work, it's been connecting and realizing that these don't have to be transient acquaintances, but the beginnings of lasting bonds with amazing, hard working, passionate people.

And then, the feather in my rejuvenation cap, I got a package in the mail today, containing genuine, honest-to-goodness, Western PA leaves of various shades and colors, courtesy of MT. And along with a few minutes of misty eyes, they brought final added strength of remembering that even if we're on opposite sides of the country, the love and support I have with all those crazy people stretches infinitely.