I don't have the time or the energy to even begin writing about the conundrums that have been stretching my brain in a thousand different directions over the last few months. The conclusion I have come to is that no amount of education or preparation could possibly have amply equipped me for life in the real world. I've hardly been able to come up for air since I moved away from home at the end of the summer. First, life as a financially-strapped single grad student slapped me across the face. I went through the traumas of homesickness, questioning my decision to come to grad school, terrible living situations with a difficult roommate, the personal tragedy of having to give up my cat after a particularly nasty bout of fleas, and moving and transitioning to living alone for the first time in my life within the span of the first couple of months. And then, these past couple of months, I've been buffeted and plagued with enormous doubts and fears about God, a crisis of faith, the weight and impact of my choices, and the trajectory and purpose of my life, accompanied with a deep questioning of many things I have always taken for granted to be true. The result of all of it has been a little depression, a lot of anxiety, and no small amount of heartsickness.
Part of it is that, in the words of one of my favorite people in the world, I'm "too smart for my own good." And I think he's probably right. I keep thinking that, if I just had a simple mind, I would be so much more blissfully ignorant of pretty much everything that's caused me headaches and heartaches for the past several months. How nice it would be to be content to live a quiet life lacking the degree of intellectual curiosity I seem to be capable of and prone to. I want to go back to being five. When life and the world were so much simpler. And I felt surrounded by the safety and warmth a loving home provides. But. Alas. My brain and I and our gigantic questions are out here in this enormous, cold world now.
I felt premonitions of it before leaving college. I was scared to graduate. I had found a niche where I belonged and where I mattered. I felt safe. Occasionally challenged, but mostly on my own terms. I remember thinking about venturing outside of that safe, warm "bubble," as we called it, and shivering in preparation. I had no idea how right I'd be.
Part of it must be the cultural climate in which I exist. This article in The Atlantic, I think, is pretty spot on with regard to the cultural shift that's taking place in this country, and I'm feeling it just as acutely as the next person, if not more so. In fact, my life, in many respects, is a microcosm of the larger cultural picture. The metaphor in my head is of clinging desperately to the side of a ship being tossed on a stormy sea.
Here's the thing no one ever told me about venturing outside the bubble of the Christian subculture. You meet people. Wonderful people. You've been told to love them--sure. But there's no recipe for how to love anyone because every single person is different and every interaction you have is different. How do you do life in this world when you're an intellectually minded twenty-something with a deep, bleeding heart who's clinging to the belief that miracles happen and death has died? It's so much harder than I thought it would be.
Tell me, anyone over the age of 65, does your mind ever quiet down? Does it ever find rest?
I defer to Portia in Act I, Scene 2 of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, with one small edit:
"By my troth, Nerissa, my little [mind] is aweary of this great world."
