Maybe it’s too soon to jump to conclusions, but I feel like the last week has been a step backwards. I’m not worried yet. This isn’t unexpected. Starting classes is a big step bound to overwhelm. But I had reckoned that once I hit the beaches, so to speak, even if I was scattered on the landings, that I would be able to quickly regroup before the battle, and I don’t feel like that’s happened.
I wouldn’t say I’m on the back foot. I’ve been on the back foot, and I’m not there yet. But I also wouldn’t say I’ve hit the ground running. I’m still in a reactive mindset, when I should be in a more proactive one. Maybe I simply haven’t had time to readjust back to a school schedule. But is this something that I’ll get the hang of in due course, or is this something I need to be consciously focusing on now? Is thinking about this problem needless anxiety, or do I need to think about it to pull me head out of the sand before it’s too late? I don’t know, and the uncertainty only makes me more nervous.
The feedback from those around me has been well meaning, but not always helpful. On the one hand I have people trying to congratulate me, when I’m reality this is the last thing I want.
For one thing, the path I am taking is not my first choice, or my second, or even third. I say that I’m going to a local community college; this ain’t quite true- it’s technically a state university, albeit a small one. But it isn’t where I planed to go, where I expected and was expected to go. It doesn’t reflect my talents or aptitudes, even if it might reflect my abilities. I’m not ashamed of the institution that I find myself at, but I am certainly ashamed of how I wound up here.
And yes, I know that for those sympathetic people who know my whole story, there is no shame in it. But aside from relying on the sympathy of others, a thing which I endeavor to avoid, it still doesn’t jive with the story I want to tell about myself. It isn’t the person I want to be, and that discrepancy makes me uncomfortable, especially when it is publicized.
For another, I have been trying to downplay this step to myself and others, partly to whitewash my shame, but also partly as a strategy to mitigate any future failure and play down the stakes to avoid psyching myself out. Whether or not I am the worst of my current enemies, I am certainly one of them, and the more I hear about how this is a big step, the more I question my own abilities to follow through. The more I question myself, the less sure I feel, and the less inclined I am to make myself vulnerable to failure by giving a full effort. So I downplay the importance of my actions, and take the official line that I don’t care. Or, as Epictetus wrote in the Enchiridion, “Whoever, then, would be free, let him wish nothing, let him decline nothing, […] wish things to be only just as they are, and him only to conquer who is the conqueror, for thus you will meet with no hindrance. But abstain entirely from declamations and derision and violent emotions.”
On the other hand are people who seem to expect me to be able to handle everything from here, as though in completing the walking through the gates ceremony I was imbued with psychic logistical, scheduling, future-reading and long-term planning abilities. All of a sudden, because I am, at least nominally, a college student, I am supposed to be able to handle all of my own affairs, despite no precedent of doing so. All of a sudden people who previously assured me it was fine to not know where I’m headed in life are berating me for not being better organized and having a plan. This leaves me feeling somewhat like I’ve had the rug pulled out from under me.
These concerns are compounded by the fact that they’re coming from people upon whom I am relying for the course of this endeavor, and whose insistence on moving forward along a more conventional, if not necessarily orthodox, path of starting college classes rather than, say, traveling or starting a small business, was a major motivating factor in the decision to pursue this path, despite considerable hesitation. The main justification, in so many words, for going to a local college instead of a perhaps more prestigious one further away, was the desire to avoid fighting on multiple fronts at once. The assumption was that by remaining as a commuter student, the dynamic outside of school, by which the processes of maintaining my day to day health are carried out, and the logistical issues inherent in college are handled, would not be essentially different. The prospect, therefore, of any change in this area is especially troublesome.
I desperately want to be successful in my classes. My experience in high school was awful, and I want to be able to prove, to myself as much as others, that this is not how things are destined to go. But after learning through long years and bitter tears that oftentimes adults who are charged with overseeing my success do not actually care, and do not feel an obligation to honor promises, morals, common sense, or indeed the law, it is difficult not to feel wary of the future.
I hope that this week is a “two steps forward, one step back” sort of deal. Despite all of this wariness, I remain cautiously optimistic on the whole. Whether or not I can take them in stride, I still reckon I can handle the challenges of my classes so far. But then again, I thought that starting high school.
