Life updates: I’ve started grad school where I’m pursuing my MFA in poetry. Alongside my classes, I teach two sections of undergraduate English. This teaching waives my tuition and pays a small stipend. The following is my lamenting on my time here.
The air is dry. The town is small, and infinitely more conservative than I thought. When I walk through the suburban neighborhoods surrounding my apartment, a slight sickness creeps over me at the number of anti-abortion We Choose Life signs in people’s groomed front yards. The summer starts out hot and quickly falls into a crisp, cold autumn. I will say, for what it’s worth, the fall is beautiful here. Campus, with its brick buildings and well-maintained tree lined sidewalks, looks picturesque.
I’m depressed here. Something I’ve never felt. I miss the green Oregon trees and hills. I miss large bodies of water. I miss my family, my friends, and my partner. I miss seeing those I love everyday. I miss my old therapist and her comforting office. Here, there aren’t many trees. The hills are large and brown and fruitless. They’re ugly. When you drive ten minutes across town you can see the entire small city spanning across the skyline. It’s quite bland and sad.
Everything here feels catastrophic. Small inconveniences ruin my day. This environment makes me feel trapped.
I’ve never really had to be alone before. I’ve always been relatively close to my family, always had my twin sister or a friend to rely on. Here, it’s just me. And I’ve found it complicated to make friends in such a small MFA program. Even though we’re all writers, that feels at times, the only thing we have in common.
I feel that my writing is poorer here. I feel uninspired and have nothing to say. My poems are forced and my essays miss the mark.
I’m enjoying school. This, I expected. I’ve always liked learning. Discussing readings and theories and sitting in lectures. I also really enjoy teaching. My students bring me a lot of joy, and are quite funny, kind individuals. I hope I’m helping them grow into intelligent, compassionate humans. I try to be myself in class, to be as outwardly queer as I am, even in Idaho, where I feel a slight pressure to dim my outward leftist beliefs. But I don’t do this. And my students seem to appreciate this, the few queer ones outwardly expressing their identities and connecting with the media and literature I bring in.
I’ve been taking a lot of time for myself. Cooking large batches of soup and dessert each weekend. Eating funfetti cake in the bath. I call my friends and talk to my partner frequently. I dream of my life after this program, when I live in a gay city and spend my weekends at the sex club instead of a lonely skate park eating sushi by myself.
There are good things here. A few new friends I’ve made. I enjoy my classes, and I have my own office, which I’ve decorated with vintage posters and a rainbow pompom garland. I love having my own apartment, a quiet place to retreat to. The city is quite walkable, everyone lives near each other. I try to not spend so much time alone, to make new connections even if the people here don’t seem like people I would initially gravitate towards.
Though it does get lonely here, this is something I’m trying to embrace. I know this is a learning opportunity (everything is!). I know that this newness and the hard feelings associated with it will pass. Everyone keeps reminding me this is the hardest semester, so I am choosing to believe it.
Recently, I’ve been taking extra time to read non-class assigned books. I’m nowhere near my GoodReads Reading Challenge goal though I think in these next two months I can get close to where Past Jadey thought she would be. Since the summer I’ve been shockingly invested in reading nonfiction. In fact, I just ordered more from ThriftBooks, a new favorite site of mine (along with Depop -though I’ve cut my self off from buying any new clothes for now).
My partner and I have been exploring non-monogamy, and while that’s been challenging at times, it’s also incredibly rewarding, and makes me feel closer to them even though we’re apart. Whenever I get around to it, the non-monogamy blog post should surely be interesting.
Anyway. It’s not all horrible. Sometimes you gotta complain to see it’s not all that bad. The only way out is through. God gives his strongest soldiers his toughest battles. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger or whatever they say. Over and out.
