...aaaaaaand, we're back!

I just finished writing 36* pages of reflections and explanations and justifications… and I’m exhausted. Mentally, physically, emotionally, “spiritually, ecumenically, grammatically…” (Name that movie!) and so on.

As I struggled to find new words to say the same things in seemingly different ways and made tenuous connections between what actually happened and what some far-removed executive body envisions as “ideal,” I found that my growing fear and aggravation had nothing to do with the impending deadlines. Despite the massive amounts of work and the absence of a social life, my internship gave me a great gift that I am now terrified of losing: I’ve been reminded of how much I truly love to read, love to write, and love to be smart with other smart people. These things had nearly been beaten out of me by years of reading drivel (“academic” drivel, but drivel just the same), writing hundreds of pages of b.s. that could be summed up in about five sentences, and being forced into artificial discussions with disinterested interlocutors. I still identified myself as a reader and a writer, but I wasn’t bringing the goods anymore. This spring, LHS happily re-awakened the beast, but the last two weeks threatened to shoot it with horse tranquilizers as the familiar headache slid back into place like the lid of a roll-top desk.

The work was torturous. Each sentence felt more painful than the one before; I had to stop and rest for a few minutes after each mental contraction as if I was giving birth, but to someone else’s child. There is nothing of me in those lines, and yet I feel empty. The page count grew, and I could feel the numbness and apathy creeping back into my writing as the newly-resuscitated joy seeped away. Books that had unrelentingly captivated my attention just a week before remained nearby, but their pages held little comfort as my eyes strained and my mind failed to focus. I wondered if this experience might once again bury my creativity and curiosity under the weight of a bureaucratic academia, but even in the darkest hours at the library, there were moments – moments where a happy turn of phrase was woven in amongst the tedium, or half an idea for a poetic line was scribbled on scratch paper before it was lost in the fray.

Now it is done. Now it can be summer. My first – perhaps of many – in Lawrence. I plan to take a few days, or maybe a week, to recuperate from my battle with the printed word; movies and TV shows will be watched, an apartment will be cleaned, and celebrations will be had. But as I settle into new, less strenuous routines, I expect myself to come back to those books left unfinished and to come back here often to read and write and exercise my smarts. Right after I catch up on LOST.




*Yeah, I didn’t fix it when Word 2007 set my margins at 1.25” and I might have spent more time intently looking for adjectives and adverbs just lengthy enough to bump each paragraph to one more line than the time it would have taken to develop one more original idea, but it can’t be argued that I just completed a ridiculous task. Let’s just say that the next time I write something the approximate length of a thesis, it had better be far more interesting and I had better take more than two weeks to do it.