The Pity Party Continues
I remember the days. I would finish writing one page on a 10-page paper, re-read it four of five times, then re-write whatever needed re-writing, then re-read it four or five times again. The pattern would continue until I would leap from my chair in my apartment, whooping and dancing and generally making a bigger fool of myself than usual. When I was on fire, I was on fire: No one or nothing could stop me on my easy ramble to an A+ paper. In a few weeks, after the paper had been turned in and evaluated, I would receive it back with comments, questions and some suggestions, along with the ever-present compliment: You write so convincingly and beautifully. I argued well, I researched well, I wrote well. I am not tooting my own horn: I’m simply spelling out for readers what it was that happened on my way towards that grade, towards those compliments, towards the encouragement. When I didn’t reach a goal, I knew it, and my professors knew it too. They would write on my papers to probe further; I would later talk to them and discuss what it was I needed to look for, and usually, right there in that office, the light in my head would turn on and I’d nail whatever point or argument had been eluding me during the writing of the paper. My professors would be pleased, knowing that with a bit more searching, I would hit my point every time. It was on the verge of happening every time when college ended, I got accepted in Toronto, then I was unable to stay in Toronto the first time I went.
I think, in the intervening year, a year in which I tried desperately to stay within the academic world, in which I took classes online to force myself to examine works of literature, in which I brooded upon my lost opportunity, I lost my desire. I lost my drive. There was no continuation of the good work that I had started. It just ended. And I had no guidance as to how to direct that unused energy, no words of wisdom as to how to stay in tune with the rhythms of my field while I was away for a while. Consequently, when I did succeed in going back, I did work that was still considered stellar, but devoid of any feeling on my part. There was only one paper in which I got up and whooped and danced when I was studying in Toronto. And when I did whoop and dance that one time, it hit me that it had been so long since I’d done that, and I started to cry. I think I started to cry because I knew it might be the last time it’d ever happen to me.
There was so much good elsewhere, good that still exists strongly today, that I ignored my reaction as simple exaggeration. Like I said, the good still exists, but I now realize I was mourning the loss of something that would be departing much too soon. My experiment, my dream, my hope for this field had run its course, and I knew it. To attempt stay would be foolishness of the most premium caliber.
The humanities should not lose you, I was told. It was about to, and there was nothing neither I or the humanities could do. There was simply no escaping the practicalities of life, and the events that had led up to this decision. It was inevitable, it was non-negotiable. I had to stop thinking in Shakespeare and start thinking in Washingtons. It was as simple as one, two, three (student loans).
As much as I love it, The Spanish Tragedy cannot pay my bills.
As much as I adore him, Chaucer cannot assure me of a job.
As much as I enjoy it and as good as I am at it, writing treatises on Mary Magdalene won’t be a way of life for me.