life keeps going on

I know my eyes might start crying except I'm downstairs in the library, which is a good place to be when I know I'm about to cry, but don't rally feel like it dahling.

I have an essay, not very long, listing professional and personal goals. I was hovering around the department lobby, thinking what to do next when three of the professors came out. (Are they professors? Teachers, whatever they are.) "How are you?" they asked. They're all three or four feet taller than me. And they wear flats for the most part. They dress up and wear their nails long and I'm sure it changes their outlook on life to wear neatly planned outfits with little jackets and long strings of silver chunky jewelery.

In my 'nother life I plan to make these necklaces, they're somewhat shaped like a kidney and I will apply fabric handmade flowers, ribbons and strings of pearls and everyone will say, Where did you find that!? and I will say, this thing? I made a few of them other night.

So they asked how I am. Since I wasn't at the library but I was conscious of my lack of timing, I did not cry when I mentioned I need to write this essay. They p'shaw'd my evident anxiety and one said that with my life experience it will be easy. She said she could write mine (based on what she knows about me) and it should be easy. So there I go. Write about life experience and professional goals. The word goal bugs me. What if I do not reach the goals? What if I have unrealistic expectations? If I write this stuff down, well then what?

The essay isn't really causing the stress, it's the stress that is overwhelming my efforts to write this essay. In my head, I know I can write this. It's just, in my head, there are these clouds of worry and lightning bolts where I wonder how I will fill in the blank for the next period of time and the thunder insists this is irrational, because I know there is a support group of people who can help me with things. What keeps me from asking. I don't ask because I know everyone else is in the same boat. I'm not special, everyone has problems. I suppose I should plan ahead better. Everybody has several fault lines running beneath the crusty skin of their lives, right?

I miss J. I had no idea how difficult all of this was going to be with him out of town, and why is it difficult? I think the difficulty lies in whatever it is I expect that I can't quite put a name to. Really there is no prescribed formula for making this work, I have to work it out as I go.

Most distressing is the similarity to being in a room with someone and talking talking talking, trusting they hear me, but getting a very infrequent variable response. The sole purpose of being in the room with this person is to be supportive, helpful and make their life easier. Hopefully the knowledge of being of assistance would be enough to satisfy the need for reinforcement. Somewhere back in the darker recesses of the crevices of my brain, there is the need for greater response. At the other side of the room, the one I am talking to is probably reacting in some way, but I rarely see that response, or hear it, and more often than I like, there is no way of knowing. I am completely aware the lack of response can not be helped. Complaining about the lack of response would diminish morale. Diminishing morale would be bad. It just would.

I just signed up for a Webinar. One hour, 7-8 PM. "From the Classroom to the Family Room, Building a Bridge From School to Home By Engaging Parents in the Learning Process."

Hopefully the kids and I can get all our homework done before then.