Stretch

A few weeks ago, I stopped counting the days. It seemed gratuitous. The count was and is meaningless to me. It's a substantively void thing pretending to represent something meaningful;

Day 1: A New Beginning
Day 18: Getting comfortable
Day 34: A Seasoned Veteran
Day 52: ZOMG 'XAMZ!
Day 71: Teh BurnOuts!

I've been feeling stuck out of time this semester, as if a series of things are happening all around me divorced from sequential order. The general linear feel of life and life events has been submerged beneath a thrumming torrent of concurrent everything. It all begs my attention simultaneously and it's all important. I reach out and grab what I can; repairing, completing, apologizing, thinking, reading, eating, drinking, re-reading, writing, fretting, testing, hoping, contacting, connecting, reconnecting, forgetting, at times in complete control, at times at the mercy of the maelstrom.

Again and again I'm finding that things aren't as unorganized or tumultuous as they appear to be. There's a "real" version of things that I'm able to view when I occasion to break the surface of this... stuff... and have a good look around. Everything is normal. And I'm ok.

That exam I thought I failed was a B. That paper? A-. I don't see the change because I'm living it. I don't feel it because it's gradual. I've grown so accustomed to the feeling of progress that I can't recognize it any more. The constant ache of moving to and fro is numbing, taxing, invalidating. I have no frame of reference.

I crave relative stillness to reflect upon. I crave boredom. I crave silence to balance all this violence.

Less than a month remains of this semester, including a week of vacation. It feel like I started yesterday. It feels like I'll begin tomorrow. It feels like I've always been doing this. Rest is an illusion. A fantasy. Stillness is my imagined heaven, existing only in my mind, desire making it both tantalizingly real and infinitely intangible.

I am burning out and it's ok. I have prepared for this. I am not breaking, I am bending. I welcome the wind. I can smell the wet-mud stink of tomorrow's improbable Spring. I can feel the earth warming sun insisting against my skin, fat cloud animals luxuriating above and about me. I am dreaming. I am wanting.

I need a vacation.

I have a little over 300 pages of reading and 25 pages of writing before I can breathe a finishing sigh. Until then, I am because I must. Or something. I'm almost done.

* * * * *

As a reminder, I'm working to raise money to study in South Africa this upcoming Spring. I've attached a donation button to the top right of this page just under the "About Me" section. If you're so inclined, click the donate button and make a donation in the amount of your choosing via PayPal.

Many many thanks to those of you who've already offered monetary support. It is both desperately needed and greatly appreciated.