All Work, All Fun, Makes Hearts a Weary Day

I believe life has gotten the better of me.

You think this is negative. Truly, it can't possibly be a negative statement. Life has gotten the better of me because I have given the best I can. I'm only in these circumstances because of choices which led me to accepting my current status. I'm a full time student (as I've been for the past several semesters) taking 19 credit hours which consists of 5 classes (Physics, English Composition II, Public Speaking, Theatre Appreciation, Calculus I) while working 2 jobs, one of which is 40 minutes away while the other is 7. I'm currently seeing my boyfriend about 2 hours every three days and I haven't truly seen a friend outside my work or school environments in about three weeks now.

Am I stressed? Not really. I'm actually enjoying the thrill of pushing myself to the extreme, testing the boundaries between insanity and structure and sleep deprivation. Doing all this is fun. However, I'm already feeling the strain in several areas.

One is my writing. I haven't truly written anything inspired by creativity in quite a while. My mind has completely changed tracks and is now moving on a steady train called Academia. It goes through a circle of towns: Research, Compose, Edit, Submit. I'm enjoying this ride because it's teaching me how to force creativity into a focused, linear style of thinking. My academic papers are fun and entertaining because my prose are filled with beauty. I can't help it. This is my best.

However, essays and research papers and speeches aren't really an issue in regards to my writing. They're just other avenues toward writing nirvana (now that's a concept!). The evidence for strain is here on my blog. Notice I haven't put anything up this month. Well... school started. There's the answer. This goes beyond placing digital, poetic, fantastic words onto a website for you to read: I haven't written anything other than my essays and speeches for school. This is wrong to me, and it's something I won't let suffer.

Added to my writing, I feel another strain on my relationship. We don't see each other much, except for an hour at school (maybe) and then in the evenings if we both don't have too much homework. When we do see each other it's nothing but good times. Much remains beneath the surface neither one of us is talking about because we don't actually have enough time to deal with our issues. Every relationship, every couple, every friendship and partnership has issues lying beneath the surface of pleasantries automatically inserted when seeing each other for short moments. I need more time to work these issues out.

Writing is therapeutic for me. It puts my mind into a different realm where thoughts are actions and possibilities play themselves across a scene of juxtaposed understandings. I get answers through writing and letting my mind wander. I've realized love. I've realized pain. I've realized devotion and sensitivity and sublimity and ultimate truth. Many of these times, I've realized the next moves I've had to make in my relationships.

It suddenly feels like I've changed my way of processing from actual written works (pen to paper) to visualizations in daydreams. Meditation is certainly helping with this; and coming into a deep meditative state is coming faster and easier nowadays. It helped me realize my load is too much in life, even though I'm giving it my best and succeeding (for the most part). I've stopped trying to multitask and have been devoting my attention singularly to the tasks at hand. However, I've been doing this almost constantly during my waking hours. My only relief is in meditation and sleep.

Thus, I'm giving up one job in favor of the better/closer one. This will free of some of my evenings and I won't have to work 50 hours a week (yes... 50 on top of school. I know. I'm crazy.)! Though this won't truly come into effect for another 3 weeks, I'm still looking forward to some free-time (but it might turn into more homework time and I just won't have to stay up as late nor wake up as early). Perhaps this will allow me to fix the other issues in my life.