It has been a long time. And it is much to my regret.
I have already apologized to some personally for my neglect of this website. At the time of my last blogging things were busy. When I arrived in Chile for the port call I began accumulating a lot of work and responsibility very, very quickly and my priorities shifted very quickly. One of my other responsibilities as I mentioned was to maintain the NCSU blog site, which I did a dismal job of as well. Neglect.
Right now I am ill. I've been running a low grade fever since Friday and my pesky chest congestion and hacking cough greeted me this morning with a sore throat and frog voice. The sad thing is I didn't notice my frog voice until about 4pm today. The first time I saw, and was able to speak to someone. I've had lots of alone time these past few days. These past few months actually. Almost too much. I've been putz-ing with my computer, sorting and organizing what now comes to 40Gb of music (a modest collection for many..) and 89Gb of Antarctic pictures and video (that is not a typo, and I don't even have the whole collection). My entire house and next door neighbors went out to the local pub run this afternoon. No one was in the house this weekend because everyone was at a tournament. I gave up ultimate for school. Most of my peers have graduated and moved on, or are just simply not in Raleigh right now. I spend a lot time by myself (what? but you're the quintesential social butterfly?) and it's something i've begun to think about a lot. Reflect.
I've seen and experienced a lot in the last three years. I've grown TREMENDOUSLY. That once carefree, silly, giddy, (and what I would consider lazy) girl is no more. I am not carefree. I'm still silly, but the enthusiasm I used to feel when facing the daily grind has evaporated. I am often cripplingly anxious. Given my extensive to-do list I am often so overwhelmed that I can not function. Period. Anxiety is not new to me. Friends perhaps know this better than family. You know who you are.
People often say to me, you are so young to have been to Antarctica! To have done and seen the things you have! To be honest, I am not as well traveled as some of my friends, but where I have been and the situations I have been in have given me a very real and abrupt awareness of how wonderful, beautiful, and absolutely terrifying this world is. I have heard complete silence... I mean complete and total silence more in the last 5 years than some people will hear in their entire life. I have experienced just how thin the safety net is between myself and mortality. I have worked beyond exhaustion to the point where your only motivation is the idea of motivation itself. I feel I truly understand what it takes to be a GOOD scientist (by this I mean I have taken my anal retentive attention to detail to a whole new level - good for doing science - bad for the whole anxiety thing). I have seen the Ice... I can not explain it to you and no picture will ever do it justice. And I've had to reconcile that this wonderful, amazing place that I feel is so much a part of who I am now, I won't be able to see again for quite some time (if ever again).
It's like in DOGMA, when Alan Rickman (Metatron) is explaining to Bethany his purpose as the messenger of God. That God's voice is so awesome and powerful that if [she] were to speak to us our heads would explode ('they went through 3 Adam's before they figured that one out'.. LOL). I'm not saying that grad school (and all associated sea-faring adventures) has been some sort of religious experience (awesome and powerful, yes) but i'm thinking that my mind might be far too feeble and nearing combustion.
So, let's run with the Catholic thing here. Pergatory. Caught between heaven and hell. I have lived in North Carolina my entire life (short of a brief stint in Alaska, and being either in Antarctica or at sea collectively comes to about the same amount of time). I am about to start my 7th (UGH!!!!!) year in Raleigh. Do not get me wrong, Raleigh has been good to me. But I need more. I need adventure. I need BIG mountains. I need to GET OUT OF THE SOUTH. The ideals are sometimes as stifling and uninspired as the heat and humidity. I find myself withdrawn from everything I once used to love. Ultimate, friends, but more than that being SOCIAL in general. I find myself latching on to those who live elsewhere, to ideas about my future, and generally all things related to 'jumping the gun' and 'putting the cart before the horse'. It is the only place I find solace.
But how then to achieve sweet ascension?
I had to return early from the beach to sign some paperwork and meet with my advisor last week. I am taking 8 hours of course work and I found out that I am TA-ing. (But Alyssa, you're being paid! This is a blessing!) Yes. In today's economy.. wah wah wah. I guess I was upset because this put a DEFINITE end to all fantasies about me graduating in December. I'm pulling for a March/April defense. It seems as though the fun and professional development will never end. A valuable lesson reinforced once again. Things will NEVER go exactly according to plan.
But being in 'purgatory' does inherently mean that I am in a state of grace, and on my way to a 'heaven' (of sorts). It may not seem like it but I will get there. It is amazing how simply writing this down helps. I WILL GET THERE. I recently shared some tales of misfortune with a friend of mine aboard a vessel in the Pacific. He was rehashing tales of oppressive heat, sogginess, and condescension by his superiors (as he too was the youngin' on the boat). While he is no amateur, it was his first job with their vessel and as a greenhorn he was treated as such. He also has humor that is astonishingly similar to mine and being 10 years everyone's junior made for dull, frustrating workdays.. 40 of them. However, despite this misfortune he instead chose to be motivated by an idea called 'pronoia'. For those unfamiliar with the term, it was thought to be first dubbed by Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow as the idea that the world is
in fact a conspiracy on your behalf, trying to shower you with blessings and opportunity.
Hearing this from him I was shocked. I too had recently heard of this term (long story short, I was reading a Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers who sited WIRED magazine who did a promotion of the
pronoia meme in a 1994 issue - great book btw). It's a powerful thought. A smack in the face of Murphy's Law if you will. In a way I feel I had always subscribed to this paradigm. But then I came up against some pretty powerful adversity. And adversity can make a person pretty darn pessimistic.
But that's what this life is about isn't it. It's an awful, beautiful dance of suffering and joy. A phrase that always rings clear to me is the handsome voice of the Fairfield Four baritone acknowledging, "Father, we know that sometimes we need a little rain to 'preciate the sunshine".
It's rainy alright (and actually quite literally). But Sam Cooke said 'A change is gonna come' and
pronoia says for the better. I'm counting on it.
