Letting Go

The lecture schedule is brutal.  The workload is tremendous.  Bring it.  I'll thrive.

In fact, not only will I take that, but I'll raise you, being on call at the AER every other week, 2 DES sessions every week, AND tutoring 6 kids on the side.  Pause, I DID want to fill ALL my time... right? 

Then there is life.  I have about 4 close friends dealing with serious issues right now (serious qualifies as death or threat of death).  I am alone, away from my best friend in the whole world, and still don't trust my support system here to be the net when I slip.  Shit, now I AM drowning.  And it's my hand holding me under...


The plan I came with this term was to hang around the people that keep me sane (support), be prepared for the workload (rock that study), and control my emotions (chemically or physically or best combination thereof).   I have somehow alienated one fabulous roman candle, which takes away half my support, I no longer have time to physically exhaust myself, and I seem to be drowning myself mentally.   Clearly, the "having control of everything" part of this plan did not work.


The first term-ers utterly failed their first battery of exams, and I feel like a failure as a teacher.  In fact, "Peter from DES" who was already on my shit list, watched a recent session and (paraphrasing) told me I was awesome except I need to TONE IT DOWN. He didn't say that, but that is how I took it.  Okay, so I suck as a teacher...

I have alienated my fabulous yellow roman candle somehow, although I maintain I was not the crazy one, at the time. My friends back home, and here, are going through tough stuff, and I'm not there, and I should be for them, and now I'm a terrible friend, too.

I've had a bad cycle (TMI), and have recently been hiding in my room, staying late at Taylor, and not going to class.  That makes me, wait for it, a terrible roommate, owner, and student all in one.

To sum it up, I suck at life.  I really, really suck at life.  And despite my grappling to do the best at everything, I'm drowning.  So where's the problem?

The support I do have told me this:  LET GO.  Stop trying to control everything in your life; stop taking on everyone else's EVERYTHING as your own responsibility.  Stop trying to hold it all together.  Relax and stop worrying.  Trust yourself to know you are OK, that you are decent at some things, and just be.  Surrender to life, to being loved and supported, and to not having control. Just let go.  It will be okay.

And here is the evidence of that wisdom.  I am about top of my class right now (not being arrogant, that evidence of a lot of hard work), multiple people telling me and others how great a teacher I am, my roommates not just get along with me but *gasp* like me, and my dog still loves me when I come home.  And despite all that I was a wreck mentally.  But then this is also the evidence that I am a good friend: my support is my friends here, and they love me. 


This is what they told me and I found myself telling someone else not 20 minutes later:

I can see the storm; I can see the abyss. I can see the spark, the flame burning inside you.  I can see the rain come, and the flood waters rising.  I can see the cold and dark and the wind draining the heat from that flame.  But I can also see what you cannot.  I can see the strength in you.  I can see The sparkling gem that you are, and I can see your worth.  And you are worth going through hell and back.  I can see all of that.  And I can see the light, the sun, the stars, and the way out. 

I'm not leaving you.  I can weather you, because that is what friends do. And I trust myself to know I am a good friend to you.




All you need is just a little bit of trust in yourself.  And then, just Let Go.