Post as prayer

Two days late(er) and I am still working on the research proposal.  Nerves, it's all nerves plus life.  Family, not just kids but sisters, parents and man, always come first for me.  Mental, emotional and physical exhaustion comes next.  Then school -- which is a completely mental process hindered by my constant emotional preoccupations.  I feel tortured that I am tortured.  I feel guilty that I am not 100% a mom nor 100% a brilliant, committed grad student.  I feel resentful that I am not a pampered home-owning homemaker too (doesn't this all sound So punk rock?).  The common theme is anxiety and a vicious cycle.  As I type this my insides are in knots, I am having to hype myself into my day, I already feel the clock ticking and I feel paralyzed.

So this post is a prayer -- to who or what I'm not sure.  I pray for mental and emotional peace, release from self-judgment. I want to let myself off the hook.  I want to believe that for me, showing up is all that matters.  Since I began grad school, I've felt that it was time for me to step up and compete in the world, or rather pull myself up by the scruff of my neck and get to it.  I've shied away from competition my whole life and my insides still revolt against it.  In undergrad I was just happy that I made it through, suddenly in grad school I am in constant fear someone is going to point a finger at me and say "You, you don't belong here!".  But the truth is they haven't.  Maybe just showing up is all that matters.  Maybe I can let myself off the hook.  I am not a traditional grad student.  I am on my own with two kids and it isn't just the physical time I spend taking care of life for all three of us, my head and heart are on constant overflow.  And yes, part of that is because I am such an emotional person.  But do I really want to be someone else?  My answer up until this minute would almost always have been yes -- but not the moments that each of my children were born, and not the moments I fell in deep, deep love, and not the moment I strode across the stage and picked up my degree.  And you know what?  Not now either.

Thank you me.  Thank you, thank you.  Time to show up...