ajodasso

What's Changed

At the time I moved over here on 1 October 2005, I was (at a conservative estimate) pretty troubled. I was only just beginning to emerge from about two years of intense, unmedicated depression (which I was, to my credit, mostly good at covering up and not letting it interfere with important things like earning my BA in English from Wellesley). I'd just finished working for Starbucks (good riddance) and as a student research assistant on Kathryn Lynch's edition of Chaucer's Dream Visions (it was a fabulous gig). I'd never been to York before, although I was confident that all the investigation that I'd done independently on the MA program that I was about to begin would be a worthwhile venture and would help me to determine whether or not I wanted to do a PhD. Quite thankfully, it turned out to be the second-best risk I'd ever take. The best risk I'd ever take came about five months later when I became romantically involved with lifegivingsword. Given that I'd had two wonderful long-term relationships before that, neither of which turned out in the long run to be viable for lifelong partnership, I wouldn't have predicted I'd end up married to him in December of 2006. Part of me was always afraid of the implications of such a venture, however readily I might've entertained the notion early on in my previous two serious relationships. What I learned was that I'd always committed to the idealized version of the notion too early on. As afraid as I might've been, I think it's a testament to how extraordinary the situation with James really was (and still is). This is one instance in my life where I'll say third time was, indeed, a charm.

Psychologically speaking, I'm a lot better off. I'm not given to crashes of the same despairing intensity as I suffered in 2004 and 2005, although I've had brief spells of scaring my friends and loved ones here in York far more than they deserve. While I'm still not medicated, I do have a better idea of what my problem is and how to manage it through other means. As long as my work and long-term goals don't suffer, I'll consider the struggle a series of winning battles.

Publishing: I have something resembling a fledgling career, and this is, in spite of having earned an MA and being 2/3 finished with my PhD, the thing of which I am most proud. It's more than I expected to have by this point, and once the PhD is finished and I've secured a position at a university (or, who knows, an academic press or major archive), I hope I'll be free to move on to bigger and better creative projects. In the meantime, my poetry's doing better than ever.

Missing Boston: hasn't exactly gotten easier, but hasn't gotten worse, either. I've left behind jennaria, azureflight, twilightgardens, and dozens of others. As spotty as communication gets, they're always in my thoughts. Only a few places on this earth have ever succeeded in taking very real chunks out of my heart and keeping them. I accept that I'll never get them back. Remaining so broken is a small price to pay, what when the reflective dividends are often so great.


What Hasn't

The truth is, I do nothing by halves. I take academic and artistic risks, I jump off emotional precipices without being able to see the bottom, and I dream bigger than I can actually afford to dream. I don't know how to live any other way.

I suspect I'd die trying, and that's a conservative estimate, too!