Gripes and Thanks

"If at first you must complain, count your blessings afterward."

The past week or so has been miserable; the restlessness I described in my last post has been replaced with pain and exhaustion, and there are a number of four-letter words I could use to describe my current physical and emotional state. I sit here now, waiting to become comfortable enough to sleep, and recount some things that came to me as I made my way home from class.
I was contemplating how more and more negative things have been reducing the inventory of positive things in my life, and how the well of peace and happiness is running low and I just need to gripe for awhile and get it over with. However, I wondered at myself, if I am so dependent on circumstances to make me happy, and if I need to use people or things to "self-medicate" to make myself less miserable, what am I really made of? When happiness, health, and peace are stripped away and life is just HARD, what do I go on when there is nothing left but the core of my Self? And so I asked God.... and a few simple reminders came: "....the Lord is my strength, a present help in trouble..." "...greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world..." "....what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and has a purpose for your life even if you don't know what that purpose is yet!" and "...This too shall pass!" And thus I was reminded that this week is Thanksgiving, and one of the best ways to combat the negative is to count the blessings I do have; so, first I must complain a bit, and then I will sweep the Gripes out the door with some Thanks. :-)

Last week my body decided it had had enough of heavy backpacks, bad shoes, hard chairs, long hours at a desk, etc. My back problem became a whole-body problem, as it first put my legs into a constant state of cramp, and then into a state of trembling weakness and spasms, none of which is conducive to walking across a large campus, studying, or sleeping well. As they say, "when it rains it pours," and "misery loves company." I couldn't dance; my new orchids started to die; I got a summons for jury duty in Washington; I got a nasty paper cut on the card from my Grandma; I had a ton of papers to grade and an overwhelming number of tests to study for and papers to write. On top of it all, I had to face the disappointment of a professor over the state of my midterm exam and recent tendency toward tardiness, a dismal state of affairs that I was already ashamed of. It was a painful meeting, where I would have liked to have said "Yes, I understand that I approached this the wrong way, was not sufficiently prepared, and did not meet either of our standards. I got a grade that I have never gotten on a test, so yes I will do the extra credit and will be an exemplary student for the rest of my degree program. Now let me get out of here!" I am used to being an exemplary student in all of my classes, so it is a new experience to have to prioritize which class I will choose to do the best for/focus my energy on. I found that I am the ONLY musicologist-to-be in this school of music, surrounded by a sea of performance majors, and that my musicologist professors expect me to produce work/grades at a much higher level than the rest of the playing field. I understand why, of course, but it is a terrible feeling to doubt myself, to doubt whether I really am capable of making it through a Master's program, to wonder if I can meet their expectations or write as well as I thought I could, and to wonder if I really want to be a professor enough to withstand all the pressures I must go through in the coming weeks and months. I am admittedly a perfectionist, but I can't be perfect all the time, especially when my health fails and I have lost interest in the class I am supposed to be the best in. I am sleep-deprived, in pain, depressed, and to top it off, I have indigestion from the cup of coffee I had before going to my evening class.

Now the Gripes are out, hopefully not a burden for any one person who may read this, but silently collected and carried away by any angels listening in. Now to reverse the negativity by counting blessings, which I hope the angels will remind me of often in the coming days.

The cup of coffee I had, before it made me sick, was the most perfect cup of coffee I have had in a long time. I may have bombed one test, but I did pretty well on a few others, got a big paper revision done and out of the way, and have the next few days to rest and catch up. I may have had a few hard words to swallow from my professors, but at least they are people I respect and want to do my best to please.
Life is hard right now, but it didn't go from hard to harder, more like from "stuck-in-a-rut hard" to "climbing-up-a-cliff-amid-rockslides hard." Last year at this time I was working every holiday as a grocery-store checker, trying to teach young children at the same time, and feeling drained and like I was going nowhere with my abilities. Chronic laryngitis killed my voice, and with it a source of happiness that had kept me going, and the rest of me was out of shape as well. Now, I am struggling with another health problem, but after a relatively long stretch of good health. I have avoided respiratory bugs, gotten into better shape by dancing and stretching regularly, and my voice has returned to what it once was. It is the season for Christmas music, and I get to sing "Noel Nouvelet" and the "Halleluiah Chorus" with a functioning voice. I get to go home for Christmas, for two weeks instead of two days. I have a family to go home to. I have friends to call or write cards to on Thanksgiving.
As for this temporary disability, it is just that, something that I am currently dealing with, will learn to accommodate, and will eventually recuperate from. I have hope of dancing again soon, and I have a kind dance partner who cheers me up and has not abandoned me to go dance with someone else! I am also now better able to empathize with a friend, who has lived with a condition like mine but for her entire life. I think now I know what it feels like to be her, the obstacles she faces in the ordinary things that everyone else takes for granted, like walking up steps, bending over to pick something up, carrying a backpack, or holding oneself upright while feeling like the wind could blow you over. I may have it bad right now, but there are others I know of who are worse off, or whose condition is chronic rather than temporary. Such realizations make me pray better and more often.
Last but not least, I am thankful that here in my blog I have a refuge, a place to let go, and in the process of writing be restored. Here, there are no academic writing requirements, no critics, and the world can be put back into perspective. Next year when I read this post, I'm sure I will have something to be thankful for as I reflect on this part of my journey through grad school. Right now, it serves to remind me that I may not be happy and I may not be physically strong, but God is my strength; the person the world sees when I battle difficult circumstances should not be so different from the one it sees when life is easy and I am enjoying smelling the roses.