Cranky Is The New Perky

“Half mad . . . between metaphysics, mountains, lakes, love unextinguishable, thoughts unutterable, and the nightmare of my own delinquencies.”
It has been nearly a month since I have written. I have been paralyzed by my own navel gazing horror of my own inadequacies. The above quote is a long time favorite of mine – I might even consider it as an epitaph or as a good summing up of the last 24 years for my upcoming high school reunion. (My year is doing it a year early in a combo with the class above us as we were the first two grades starting the school. So I find myself desperately explaining to people that it hasn’t quite been 25 years, as if that one year at my advanced age made a huge difference).
Several things have happened. The first is that I nearly missed two deadlines for things for nursing school and learned quickly that they are not playing around and there are no grace periods. I received the bone chilling admonition from them that perhaps I am not nursing school material, which brought back flashbacks of years of school reports stating “Jessica is not working to her full potential.” I was a smart but disenfranchised high school student, somehow got into a great college, deferred for a year and then entered only to flunk out in a blaze of glory by being frozen by fear and simply not going. I was readmitted two years later and made it through, mainly by finding a major, professors and fellow students (I’m looking at you Jaime A.) that I loved. But there were always distractions – both my exciting life in the big city and my own self created drama and stress. At 27 I went off to graduate school in London and quickly burned out on the program and was instead distracted by lovely London and all it had to offer. I did meet my lovely husband and have one of the best years of my life, so it was worth the mountains of amortizing student loan debt. I still have nightmares after all these years of showing up to a class and facing an unexpected and mind rattling test (which happened to me again this spring bringing the whole thing full circle).
When I started the nursing school process two years ago I had to go back to school and take all the science classes I skipped in college and more. I had to take Algebra as I failed the placement test and it was required for chemistry – both subjects that have haunted me since high school. First semester I took 21 credits while working full time and made the Dean’s list. But as the process dragged on and my good friend and co-conspirator MS dropped out, I found it harder and harder. This spring, battling with the decision whether or not to go to school full time, I shoved all the paperwork in a drawer. Hence the nearly missed deadlines.
After that devastating wake up call, I have been terrified of missing deadlines and am running around getting things like immunizations and replacing my social security card. As I get ready to leave work I feel guilt and responsibility for all the unfinished work there is no way I will ever finish due to the workload and training my replacement. On top of everything the hospital announced a hiring freeze so for now any part time work is not possible. So the terror I felt before is magnified.
I used to think I was highly organized and together. Now I realize I am more like other people in my family than I thought – periods of procrastination and denial followed by mad bursts of manic energy and self flagellation. Added to that a deep strain of negativity and sarcasm that even my British husband finds too dark and you have a winning combination.
I used to think that if I was alive 200 years ago I would have loved to run with Byron, et al. – all that drinking, drugging, sex and inspired writing to justify it all. I realize that my other reactions to stress and conflict is to either retreat into a dream world of reading and daydreams or to indulge in potentially destructive or at least time wasting self indulgent behavior. But I can’t do that anymore. I am 42, have three (wonderful, beautiful, smart) children, a husband who is ill and in pain and most of all loves me more than I deserve. Looking back at the life of Byron most of all, I see that what he left besides great poetry was a lot of pain to those around him and a lot of wasted time and energy that could have created even more beautiful work.
Oh no, I might have finally grown up.