Eh.

This is my third attempt at updating this thing since my last post.

I'm feeling pretty overwhelmed by school right now; the semester is coming to a close, All My Sons is opening tomorrow morning (!!?!), and I'm terrified about finding summer work that will be 1) artistically fulfilling 2) also fill my belly with food. If you know what I mean.

It's quite possible that I'm going through some weird midlife crisis right now - what do you call a midlife crisis at 21? A fourth-of-the-way-though-lifecrisis? Maybe. If so, that's what I'm having. A few weeks ago I hit the breaking point with my workload and just gave up for a few days and went into hibernation mode. Since then, I've been trying to get all my work done to the best of my abilities, but have been fighting the urge to just "be" for a while and stop worrying about all of this stuff.

Stuff gets me down.

The other week, though, I drove out to the beach past Carthage College. It was about 11pm or so. There was a mist coming off the water and the beach was completely deserted. I reminded myself of Edmond from Long Day's Journey Into Night; I was a ghost in the fog, and the fog was the ghost of the sea. And yes, it did in fact feel damn peaceful. I've been going out of my way to find moments for this kind of solitude as of late. I think I need to simplify my life, or my priorities. Is my life just one big list of priorities? I guess it is; I'm not sure if that's good or bad, but maybe making some adjustments to my perceptions of how these priorities rank will help me chill out.

Anyway, the beach: I stood on the edge of the sand right where the waves were washing in and out. I really love Lake Michigan. Through the fog on the water, I could just barely see the blinking lighthouses in downtown Kenosha. There wasn't a boat on the water or a car on the road - I was completely alone with the waves and mist, and I felt really, really good. I could have cried, and that probably would have been helpful, but the happiness that consumed me was so effortless and pure that I didn't want to risk turning my night into a mess due to overflowing emotional baggage. I stayed there for about a half an hour, just myself and the rhythm of the lake.



I'm very ready to be happy. A lot of this semester has been fruitless self-pity and self-induced pressure to succeed at all costs. It's going to hurt me academically, but I'm determined to keep myself afloat and not let it get to me. I put too much stock in being a really good student. That whole "proof is in the pudding" thing gets a bit exhausting as far as final grades are concerned.

Time to enjoy the process. Right?