Dress: UO, remixed * Sweater: Old Navy, remixed * Tights: We Love Colors (mocha), remixed * Belt: thrifted, remixed * Heels: UO
It is a beautiful, sunny, cold morning in Chicago, and I couldn't be happier. Today is my last day of work for the week, and tonight I'm driving up to see Joe. Then tomorrow we're going to hit the road again to spend the holiday with his family. I'm all packed, with scarves and snowboots and fair isle sweaters with toggle clasps that are just waiting for some cocoa and a good book. I'm bringing a couple of loaves of my pumpkin beer bread (one for turkey day, and one to eat on all the other days!) up to Joe's mom's house, and I'm gearing up for the intense Thanksgiving Day card game that is sure to follow dinner.
I've been thinking a lot lately about where my life is going, and what I'm doing with it. It's been almost a year now that I've been in the same job, and though I love it dearly, I think I'm out of the honeymoon phase. It's a very grown-up realization, I think, to accept the fact that my life in the next few years may not be particularly groundbreaking or momentous. There won't be any graduations, since I'm not in school anymore. Of course, I may get a new job, or a promotion, but ultimately my life will still be the 9-5. And don't get me wrong, I kind of love the 9-5. But it can be hard sometimes to refocus my life in a way that doesn't involve major milestones or tangible accomplishments. It's partly why I miss school. Having something that occupies all of your time, that you can just sink your teeth into, is so satisfying and wonderful. It's very weird to me sometimes to realize that I'm not a student anymore, and that I haven't been for years now. I still identify as a student, an academic, though I'm progressively getting farther and farther away from that category in reality.
I do think about going back to school, but I just don't know what I would study. Not because I'm not interested, but because I'm too interested. I'd never be able to narrow it down to a single field to which I could devote myself. The anthropology of food. Art history in the postcolonial world. Modern American fiction. Gender in fashion. Queer theory. Brazilian cinema. (p.s. If any of you can come up with a single topic or discipline that incorporates all those things, please, please let me know. I'll apply to PhD programs post haste.)
I think part of what I need to focus on doing is learn how to devote myself to those things without being in school. Those are topics and ideas that I can still learn, and still delve into, even without a term paper or dissertation hanging in the balance. In my quest to simplify and prioritize my interests and passions, I've found myself wanting to read, explore, discuss, debate, and expand. Maybe as a pre-New Years resolution I can commit myself to do just that. I'd like to tear into a new project, bite off more than I can chew, and learn immensely fascinating things about new wonderful topics.
Title song: Alanis Morissette, "You Learn"
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