Scrappy Badger

scrappybadger June 11th, 2007

I’m feeling a little down lately. I guess, to be both honest and more accurate, I’m feeling more down than usual. I haven’t had an overabundance of joyful days for a while, but lately I’m feeling particularly beaten down by the world. Something happened. The wires got crossed, the connection was fuzzy, or I didn’t have good reception. I don’t know which one it was, but somehow my Pull Yourself Up By the Bootstraps memo ended up giving me one hellish wedgie. I guess, like usual, I misinterpreted. I’ve been pulling at the wrong strings, and all they get me is a butt rash and aching forearms.

Part of my trouble is that I’m tired. Teaching two accelerated composition classes doesn’t leave much free time, and what little there is always seems to be filled with dirty dishes and bills and laundry. Even the days when I shirk all of my responsibilities, when I take the day off from housework or grading or even answering the phone, are filled with worrying about what I’m not doing and guilt for not doing it.

The worry and the anxiety never go away. I’ve been trying not to think about a trip I’m supposed to be taking in October. My first grown up conference proposal was accepted and by the big Victorian conference — the really big one. I’ve been to the conference once, but only as a spectator when it was held at a school a few hours away. I really didn’t even expect my proposal to be accepted, but it was, and what’s more, I was faced with the possibility, be it ever so dim, of going somewhere. I haven’t been more than 5 hours away from where I grew up since I was an undergrad and even then it was to attend college. The last vacation (and the only one I think) that Piig and I went on was one funded largely by my parents who rented a beach cottage in North Carolina and invited my sisters and I.

We never go anywhere, so the idea of traveling to the West Coast, to Canada even, is really exciting. I’m beginning to think it won’t happen though. Everything is prohibitively expensive, and we’d need money for food, a hotel room, and airfare. That last one isn’t helping me feel optimistic either. Piig has been looking at flights, and I don’t know, but I’m really thinking I’m going to be forced to buy two seats. Just the thought of the dirty looks from passengers and the exasperation of flight attendants that I’ve read about in other fat people’s accounts of flying is enough to make me want to give up right now. Then there is the fact that I have to keep the trip a secret from my family until right before I leave or my parents, who live within two minutes of where my dad grew up and ten minutes from my mom’s childhood home, will start in with the horror stories of people killed in fiery plane crashes or kidnapped when they crossed the Canadian border.

Sometimes it feels like things that are really easy for other people are crushingly difficult for me. It’s as if I lack some kind of enzyme that would allow me to cope with the world like a normal human being. Meanwhile, I usually just end up feeling inadequate and incapable of really doing anything. I go back to the dirty dishes and the bad student essays, and I wonder if this is what it will always be like.

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