grad school, parenthood, identity crisis. welcome to the rabbit hole.

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Happiness

Happiness



There’s just no accounting for happiness,
or the way it turns up like a prodigal
who comes back to the dust at your feet
having squandered a fortune far away.

And how can you not forgive?
You make a feast in honor of what
was lost, and take from its place the finest
garment, which you saved for an occasion
you could not imagine, and you weep night and day
to know that you were not abandoned,
that happiness saved its most extreme form
for you alone.

No, happiness is the uncle you never
knew about, who flies a single-engine plane
onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes
into town, and inquires at every door
until he finds you asleep midafternoon
as you so often are during the unmerciful
hours of your despair.

It comes to the monk in his cell.
It comes to the woman sweeping the street
with a birch broom, to the child
whose mother has passed out from drink.
It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing
a sock, to the pusher, to the basketmaker,
and to the clerk stacking cans of carrots
in the night.
                     It even comes to the boulder
in the perpetual shade of pine barrens,
to rain falling on the open sea,
to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.




Jane Kenyon





**

Thanks to Stephanie for showing me this poem a while ago, and then immediately knowing what I was talking about when I asked again for "the poem with the wineglass". 

Monday, March 25, 2013

new home resolutions


I’m moving out with Lena in less than a month (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and I didn’t make new years resolutions this year because of reasons, so it seems like a mighty good idea to make new home resolutions.

So here we go.

1. Buy less stuff.

I’m taking like, 1/10th of what I own to this new place, so it’s going to be decidedly clutter free. On top of being on a budget (because for three months there will be rent AND daycare costs and maybe sometime we can talk about how it is virtually impossible for a single working parent to save for any kind of future?) I just want to minimize the crap in my life. Literally. So this means no impulse toy buys for L, and definitely no impulse clothes/shoes/nail polish buys for me. Plus I have no excuses on this. I have enough shoes to last me a lifetime, and I have a bathing suit I like. What else does a girl need for the summer?

2. Clean a little every day.

Let me tell you a story about my bathroom sink.

Lena has decided that she is a “big girl” so she no longer needs a stool to brush her teeth which means when she spits out her toothpaste it usually goes all in the sink, and if that, it always sticks very high on the sides of the sink, and I’m usually distracted or something, so I let it dribble down the sides, where it dries. Repeat this every day, twice a day. After a month or so of this, I get really pissed off and have to scrub my sink clean. It has only just occurred to me that if I cleaned it a little every day, I wouldn’t not be stuck scraping toothpaste out of the sink. This is probably a really good metaphor for everything in my life, so I’ll start with the bathroom sink, and maybe I’ll also write up my methods and my data as I produce them and be a really productive graduate student.

3. No electronic devices from 6-9 PM.

This is going to be the hardest one. It doesn’t really need an explanation. Living on my own with Lena is going to be a big change. There’s not three adults ready to talk and to play and to engage her. There’s going to be me. (...cue me getting freaked out again...) This is going to be a big change for me on so many levels, the least of which is studying for class again agghhhh (CLASS my achilles heel) so when I’m home on the weekdays, I want to focus on hanging out and feeding my daughter. I’m not barring books, magazines, or newspapers, or ignoring my daughter for an adult conversation, I think her seeing me read and ignore her will do great things for her self esteem. I just...do not need to be playing Clash of Clans, well, ever really, but that’s another story.

Thursday, March 21, 2013

something new

I was listening to a book on tape with Lena tonight, and I learned something new.

Apparently I have been mispronouncing "chaise lounge" for 20+ years. (Hint, it's not "chase lounge".)

In other news, I am just as enamored with the Ms. Piggle Wiggle books as I was when I was 10 or so. I remember being in Woods Hole, MA for the summers, and every trip to the library I would check out more of the Ms. Piggle Wiggle books, and I would just read them over and over and over again. I got them for Lena to listen to at night, and right now I am literally in my room, with the lights off, listening along with her in the next room. Forget March Madness, forget Netflix. Ms. Piggle Wiggle's Farm.

Yeah, screw it, I'm getting back in bed with her.

Later, y'all.


Monday, March 18, 2013

not pretty

Dear Blog,

There have been a lot of changes happening lately. The normal ones, the growing up ones, the figuring out who you are ones. These are fun, exciting, but somewhat exacerbated by having a kid that is going through her own sets of changes.

**
So I'm crying in the car on the way to pick up Lena, today. And I haven't done this in a long time. This used to be my favorite time and place to cry. Something about the lull between daytime work and nightime parenting, I would sit in traffic on the way to daycare and just let myself be overwhelmed by the day and the night, and I would cry--out of frustration, confusion, exhaustion, and then I would put on my mom face, dry my tears, and start it all over again.

(If anyone says that parenthood is easy they are lying or medicated. I mean, think about it. There are two people in the world that are my parents. Feel sorry for them.)

So I'm crying because all of these wonderful, exciting, terrifying things are happening, (signing a lease! going to grad school! new roommate! leaving my job!) and for the first time in a very long time I let myself think this:

This would be so much easier without a kid.

And boy, am I giving myself a hard time for this.

And that's not really fair. That's not fair to scared, worried, terrified and anxious rachael. Rachael is going through a tough enough time without making herself feel like shit about it. (And for some reason I've started referring to myself in the third person? That's how bad this has gotten!)

It turns out this is something I specialize in, making myself feel worse than I already do, and let me tell you, it is a full time job making yourself feel shitty, and between you and me, I do not need another full time job. I have one, it pays me money, and I have another one, it pays me in rewarding moments (snort!) and I don't need one that pays me in feeling shitty.

I went to therapy, once, for this. A couple of hours and a few hundred dollars later, apparently all I need to do is to validate these feelings, let myself feel them, and move on.

**
You know what's also weird? It's weird because parents (or adults, as I like to think of them), no one seems to mind if they don't have hobbies. I mean, what's the last time you asked some doctor or lawyer with two kids what they do in their free time? So why do I feel the need to make myself more interesting, or to say that I write, I'm a writer. Why do I need to give myself hobbies or interests, or prove that I am creative. Isn't it enough that I'm alive?
**

I've been carrying these things with me for a while now. I saw this parable on facebook the other day, and I don't usually like/share or whatever those things (for me facebook is reserved for sharing everything that Jay Caspian Kang writes on Grantland), but the moral of the story was this: A glass of water doesn't weigh that much but if you carry it around forever it starts to get heavy. Like stress or whatever.

So here is me setting this glass of water and worry and insecurity on the table.

Here is me acknowledging this really shitty feeling. Here is me validating this really shitty feeling. Here is me letting myself feel this really shitty feeling.

And here is me walking away from this really shitty feeling.

**

I would love a break right now.
Or for spring to come.

The good news is, at least one of these things will come true.


Friday, March 15, 2013

just one thing

I've been having super vivid and realistic dreams lately. Like, people will talk to me, and I'll see them the next day and be like, "Didn't we talk about that already?" One is that I read a paper from this guy from duke, and on the paper were two of our good family friends that are coming to UNC, and I spent a good hour the next day poring over pubmed, and all the websites and publications of each of these people, because I was so convinced that they had collaborated on something, and I had read a paper with all of them on it. (David Sherwood, and Amy and Paul Maddox, if anyone can please find this paper because I am still sort of convinced that it exists.)

There is some other stuff going on...ho hum. I've been making some pretty awesome decisions, and some pretty horrible ones. It's amazing how wonderfully forgiving and helpful the universe is.


Sunday, March 10, 2013

Where's the manual

There is one thing I want. Only one thing. I want a single mom's manual.

I want someone to tell me how to start dating a person when being a single mom, roommate etiquette for being a single mom. I want a guide that tells me how I do graduate school being a single mom. How do I make friends with people my age while being a single mom. How do I make friends with other parents while being a single mom in graduate school having a roommate and dating.

I mean, don't get me wrong. Figuring these things out on my own is "fun" and "exciting", but damn, I've made a lot of mistakes already, and I would like to stop making mistakes and am totally and completely ready to start reading the manual and do exactly what it tells me.

Get on it, world!

Saturday, March 9, 2013

Different shades of blue

I applied to PhD programs this past fall. Because I really want to go to graduate school for the biological sciences. I've been working in a lab the past three years, and I love it. I love the technical work. I love thinking about my projects. In the past year I've started to have my own ideas. I've written a paper, I've written a fellowship proposal. I had someone tell me that my fellowship proposal probably wouldn't work, and I really didn't understand what I was talking about.

This was the best feeling in the world.

Real scientists were taking me seriously. And I was learning, and it was exciting, and thrilling, and hard but so much fun.

So I figured finally graduate school was the right thing for me.

I applied, and my list waxed and waned from the summer until the fall. Originally I thought “Wheee! Everywhere!” and then I sort of came to the realization that what was the real likelihood of me moving to New Mexico because of some wackadoodle interdisciplinary science Phd program. See also, Colorado, Tennessee, Washington, New York City, Palo Alto, and San Diego.

My final list included Berkeley, UCLA, UNC, duke, and NC State.

Berkeley was an outright rejection. (Their loss!) (But Abby Dernburg, called one of my letter writers about me! See: real scientists are taking me seriously!) (Just not the admissions committee.)

UCLA I haven’t heard back from, so I’m pretty sure I’m not going to.

UNC, duke and State all called me within a month of me submitting my applications, and asked me for interviews.

I had a lot of fun at UNC’s and State’s interviews, and by the time I interviewed at State I had gotten my acceptance from UNC, and I was excited. I was definitely going somewhere for grad school, and UNC--at the very least--was perfect for me. Lena’s in Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools, there are a bunch of new faculty that I’m excited about, it would be great to have a bunch of people ‘looking out for me’...I was happy about the prospect of attending UNC-CH (or State, still, at this point) as a phd student.

Until I interviewed at duke.

Just in case you are not aware, there is a huge rivalry between UNC and duke. And as someone who both grew up in Chapel Hill and attended UNC as an undergraduate, I pretty much can’t even look at dark blue without cringing and trying to suppress the automatic hatred for the person wearing those colors. Only recently has it occurred to me that this must be what being in a cult feels like. So I went into my duke interview with a healthy bias against them. Because duke is the root of all evil, and the baby blue runs strong through my veins.

So I was just as surprised as anyone when I done with the first full day of interviews thinking to myself, I belong here.

It just felt so right. The interviews were tough, intense, but fun. I had so much fun. And it was everything. It was the science, but even more, it was the place. I loved my student host, how enthusiastic she was about her science, how seriously she treated being a student. I’m ready to treat being a student seriously. I’m not just going to grad school because I want to go to grad school, I want to go to grad school to work really hard, learn a ton, and get my phd.

The one thing I didn't expect to experience was how good it felt just walking around the campus. I've never really spent any serious time on duke’s campus (see: root of all evil) and it was beautiful. It was also really fun just walking around somewhere new. And I didn't know that my body was craving that newness. The--not recognizing every barista at the coffee shop feeling. The--not seeing someone that knew you when you had braces feeling. I have so many wonderful wonderful memories from Chapel Hill and UNC, but there’s also a fair amount of not fun ones. The heartbreaks. The embarrassing moments. Things I’m ashamed of. And duke has none of that. I just...I didn't realize how much I wanted to be in a new place. To have a fresh start.

And to my parents, my wonderful wonderful parents--who are so happy when I am happy--which in the past five years has not been a given, are so proud of me for choosing to attend duke university. Because it is the right place for me. Because in the end it was the easiest decision I have ever made in my entire life. And even though my mom has banned any duke paraphernalia from entering her house, they are still being my number one biggest supporters.

They brought Lena home from a gymnastics meet one night, her tongue a brilliant blue from cotton candy, and she bounds into the house to greet me, jubilantly saying, “Mom, my tongue is duke blue.”

Whoa there kiddo, let’s take this a little slower. Mommy’s got 20+ years of indoctrination against duke university to work through.

But having a family that is happy and proud of you is a great place to start.

(I still cannot for the life of me bring myself to actually capitalize “duke university”, which is a step up from spelling it “dook”.)

I’m going to duke! I’m so excited.

Except tonight, I hope everyone at duke cries like little tiny babies are our Tar Heels crush, crush! I say, the hopes and dreams of seth curry and ryan kelly and all the overpriviledged new jersey undergrads who couldn't get into a real ivy league school.