What dreams may come?

The challenge:

Apply to 12 law schools.

The reward:

I haven’t decided yet.

Okay. I can be a bit of a strange mix of things. On the outside, it may seem that I’m some version of Together Girl; I dress well, tool around Cambridge in my cutie Dutch bike, I’ve just applied to law school, I run a successful outreach program at New England’s largest mosque, and I have a few small community-building projects that appear to be working in the way I had hoped.

This is what Together Girl looks like. Boots included.

Now, inside, it is a different matter. Inside, I am a half-fried mad-hatted writer with a thousand ideas, a hundred ambitions, and not enough time to wash yesterday’s coffee pot. Thankfully, I am able to disguise this well, but that doesn’t mean that my befrizzled inner self doesn’t weasel herself out of her cage now and again. And on those days, she renders me incapable of being either responsible or productive.

Five minutes. It's all I need, I swear.

This happens every time I have to do…anything large. Queen Procrastination reigns with horrifying tyranny, her adviser Sir  Stress faithfully by her side. The torture they inflict is excruciating. I hope you never, ever experience such pain.

Here’s where the odd mix comes in. I don’t not do things because I don’t care about them. Take these pesky little applications. I didn’t not complete them…um…more than a day before the deadline because I didn’t care. I do care. I care so much that I am paralyzed with fear. What if no one lets me in? What if I get one digit of my social security number wrong, and no one knows who I am? What if I mistakenly mark that I am from Bangledesh and they think I’m a lying fraud? What if I send the Penn essay to Northwestern, and the Northwestern essay to Columbia? What if I’m too late already, with a December LSAT? What if they don’t let Muslim girls into law school? What if I’m not smart?

Maybe if I curl up in this ball, the applications will do themselves?

I know. I know I know I know. Muppie, CHILLAX, it’s not that deep. It’s just an electronic application. Fill out phone number and permanent address, attach personal statement, press send. It is soooooooooooo very simple. Really. Seriously.

(In my defense, hindsight, wisdom, and friends all have 20/20 vision. Insecure girls masquerading as more together versions of themselves do not.)

So, you’re right. It’s not that deep. What’s the worst thing that could happen? Worst possible scenario: I get in nowhere. I reapply next year. In, like, September. Get the rolling  admissions process on my side. And I get in places. And I go to law school a mere 12 months after I had originally intended. Big freaking deal.

Thing is, to me it would be. I have never ceased to be terrified of suddenly finding myself incapable or inadequate. This has resulted in a lot – a lot – of playing it safe. Of putting things off. Of dreaming crazy dreams that involve Yale, a lot of ivy, a lot of coffee, a lot of all-nighters, and a Juris Doctor, and then placing them on that tidy shelf in my psyche labeled Pie in the Sky. Also known as the Maybe Later? shelf. As long as they are dreams, I cannot fail. As long as they are dreams, I do not have to hold myself up next to my high school classmates who are (gulp) already practicing lawyers. Because I’m finding myself. Very consuming work. Far too busy to take entrance exams and fill out applications now. Next year. Maybe next year.

BUT. But, dear readers, my lovely blog-visitors, I have TRIUMPHED! I have barely triumphed, yes. But I. Have triumphed. Over Procrastination Queen and her Minions of Misery. I. Have applied. To graduate school.

I flabbergast myself!

Do you realize what this means? Maybe. Probably not. I am on Cloud Nine right now. I can do things! I can apply to grad school, if I feel like it! I MIGHT ACTUALLY HAVE A FUTURE! Can you believe it?

Anything can happen now. I will believe anything. I will believe it if my favorite juvenile cartoon prince shows up with roses.

I just can't get enough of this guy.

I will believe it if the sky is purple tomorrow, or I wake up and don’t have Tragic Morning Hair. I will believe it if I get into law school. Anything can happen to me now. Anything!

I want to give myself a prize, but what? I’ve contemplated a cheesy romance novel instead of some more serious literature for my next book; throwing myself a party; allowing myself to watch as much Buffy the Vampire Slayer as I want for an entire week (I know, I’m like, crazy). I haven’t decided. So I’m blogging. Because clearly, this is what you do when something momentous happens. A girl needs witnesses.

What dreams may come, you ask? Any. Any dreams may crawl off your Pie in the Sky shelf and sneak over to Real Life. Isn’t existence delicious?

Muppie is as muppie does

So. When I began this little endeavor, I was totally and completely without any sort of gainful income. I was taking a course in journalism, but that was about it. The course, and reading, and writing all the time.

Not a bad life.

Since then, God in His mercy has blessed me with not one, but two jobs, plus a couple of small writing gigs (not regular….yet!). Plus, still the course. Now, part-time is supposed to be the chill person’s way of earning (in my naive naive mind of February). Turns out that juggling all these things is, um…it’s hard.

Which is why Writer’s Progress hasn’t been updated in so long, why my cat is feisty with me, and why I’m so tired today I can’t even think straight.

I’m happier to be working than my whining implies. It’s just…well, I feel compelled to explain my vacation from the blogosphere, however abbreviated. I feel that I have neglected myself, and you – whoever you are – and, worst of all, my writing. One of my major loves and dreams in this life. Which is bad. Bad bad bad. Writers are to write. It’s a very simple, straightforward idea, and I ought to stick to it. Tired or no. Busy or no. Writers don’t write only when they feel like it. They write because it’s got to get done. And it does. I need to stop starting things, and finish something. One thing. Do one thing well. And in a timely manner. Yes. That’s the ticket.

It’s odd; when all I had to do was sit in a cafe all day and read, stare onto the street, observe my fellow addicts, and think, ideas came easy. You’d think that being out in the world more, becing more “active” and social with people, would fuel the fire of thought. Not so. I’m shuttling myself between Cambridge and Boston  – home and work and other work and friends’ apartments and cafes. Because I am pathologically social and, well, love to read at small tables with a mug of steaming tawny liquid in one hand. It just ain’t the same at home in my sweats. I don’t know why, but it’s not. And the thing is that I’m so segmented between the ten things/places I have to do/go to in one day, that I end up feeling like I don’t actually get anything done. Not like a normal person does. Including, sadly, thinking thoroughly and well.

So despite being introduced into the World of Consulting (about which, before two weeks ago, I knew less than the average toddler), I am hopelessly, hopelessly without insight into the world. Or myself. Or religion, or literature. Maybe my brain has just given up. I don’t know. But hi, Dry Spell, what’s up? I’ve introduced him to Writer’s Block. They’re cohabiting happily in my living room. I think it’s getting serious.

Over the past couple of weeks, I would sit down to write something, and then think: no. I can’t write about that. It’s so trite. Or transparent. So I have a few drafts just sitting there collecting WordPress dust (dust collects at roughly the speed of light in my apartment). I’m not sure to bring them out or just let them lie. Obviously I’m letting them lie for the moment.

I am rambling.

Here’s my problem: I have indulged in being amazingly personal on this blog. Which I do not regret. I am a what-you-see(read)-is-what-you-get kind of girl and I’ve come to peace with that. But the reason I can be so deeply personal is because I’ve been writing about things that (get this) I can toss out there without really caring too much. Not because I don’t care at all. But because there’s nothing really riveting happening in my life right now, so there’s nothing to conceal. Baring my secrets is totally my bidness, and I can do it without really harming anyone else, or embarrassing them, or anything. Which. You know. Is nice. But so is having an actual life. One that you feel compelled to guard from the eyes of the world. Because it’s personal. Which would lead one to think that I have a problem.

Dicey. Do I want to write, or live, more? This is kind of sad, but I waver. Actually that’s really sad.

Case in point:

When I was in college, way back in the early days before Facebook (ah, the days!), my college had this thing called PlanWorld. The fancy computer-literate people would post various images and links and things, but most of us Neanderthal liberal-arts folk were of the text-only persuasion.

I had just transferred in from an all-girls school, and the tiny tiny cliquey, jock-ridden world of rural Amherst was a bit of a shock. Plus the witty banter was like nothing I had ever heard before. It was the only social currency, and boy were these kids LOADED. It was clever, it was sparkling, and I stuck out like a sore thumb.

An acquaintance from high school kind of adopted me in a fit of pity, and I promptly engaged in accidentally seducing one of his best friends. When I became aware of this one fine Saturday evening, to my very pleasant surprise, I was totally taken in by this guy. To the extent that you can be, in the basement of a dilapidated brick dorm, with a keg in one corner and a blue strobe light in the other, and some guy named Chaz stripping in red-faced, drunken, this-will-embarrass-you-when-you-wake-up-tomorrow glory to the cheers of a circle of miniskirted, tanktopped coeds.

So. You know. Not the stuff of romantic legend, but a boy does what he can. And a girl can’t blame him for Chaz’s last keg stand. It wouldn’t be democratic.

The next day, true to my transparent, exhibitionist, shout-it-from-the-rooftops self, I wrote about my unbridled, democratic enthusiasm on my plan. And my own personal Don Juan read every word.

Which sent him running for…well, the campus is on a hill. He was running for the lowlands. Which was sad, because I did really like the guy. Silly Lizzy, mucking it up again. Story of my life.

At nineteen, I was too naive to understand why transparency isn’t always the best social option. I’m not sure how well I’ve learned my lesson (I still have this notion of everyone in every room I’m in being able to read my every thought, no matter what I say), but I’m certainly putting some effort into it. This all gives me a new appreciation for Jane Austen’s spinsterhood. I wonder if a married woman would have had the moxie to write what she did. It would have been personal. But as the casual observer, she was free to comment on what she liked. Was it worth it? Is it? Can it be?

I more function as a casual observer of myself, or my past, than the people around me. Because the present – well, let me put it this way. Writing is precious. But so are people, and my relationships with them. And I don’t have strobe lights to detract from the charm of it all anymore. So I am stuck, and I’m not ashamed to say that much.

(…and Joe, if you’re out there somewhere reading this, I’m sorry about PlanWorld.)

The wisdom of fools.

I’ve been neglecting my writing. Last week, I had the excuse of a midterm. This week, I am ashamed to say that my only reason for staying away was an inability to think about anything other than Jane Austen.

You see, I am jealous of Fanny Price.

Fanny has the good sense that no one around her seems to. At eighteen, she has the forbearance to consistently refuse the man pushed on her from all sides: her rich, benefactor uncle, the cousin she is in love with, her friends, her parents, and all her acquaintance together. He has been a libertine in the past; he tells her he has changed. She is the only one to not believe him, is cast out and called a fool. In the end, he runs away with her married cousin and vindicates her refusal.

It’s possible that I am Fanny’s opposite. I believe the things that people tell me, have faith in everyone’s ability to change (hey, I’m a convert – if not me, who?), and let optimism conquer reason without putting up much of a fight.

These would be admirable qualities indeed – in a world of people who spoke only the truth, changed all the things they intended to, and lived up to expectations. Sadly, this is not the case; disappointment abounds, and it is often mine.

I know many people who are not like this. My brother, for example. He is good and wise, and it seems that he was always so. He is purposeful and deliberate. People more than twice his age seek his advice. Whenever anyone meets the two of us, or hears me talk about him, that person always assumes he is the elder sibling. Always. The reverse is true. It is also true that I am often a fool – so the mistake is understandable.

I once found myself in a situation that was truly pitiful. I fell for a man who (surprise!) said he had changed, and talked about his ability to refine and improve himself a great deal. I was impressed by the commitment to improvement he was always chattering on about. What undaunted struggle! What courage!

What blindness.

My family dutifully raised their objections, as did my friends. All and every one. And I, the loyal lover, defended my man to the last. I defended my own flawed reasoning with logical dances I can’t hope to reinvent. My elaborate maneuverings of love were so impressive and impromptu that when family recounts them for me now, I’m aghast. Really? I said that? Idiot.

A funny thing happened amidst these objections. I noticed that I was unhappy in love.

It would be so great if this didn’t feel so mournful…

Unhappy in love is an unfortunate combination, and is fraught with danger. The danger is that one will say to oneself, I don’t care. I’d rather be with him than without, no matter how miserable I am. Perhaps even more perilous is the suggestion, It will get better. He’ll change. We’ll learn to get along.

I’m not sure why, or how, but remarkably and miraculously, neither of these tempting thoughts won out. I got out. I got out fast, and reflected later on all of the building evidence of my own unhappiness that I did not see at the time. The mounting pile in the corner that suggested, oh so massively, that the man I loved was not actually the one I was involved with, but an elaborate invention we had both spun out of hope and breath and forgiveness. It was so clear in retrospect.

Foresight? We’re fresh out. Try the hindsight store next door; bitterness is on sale, and self-loathing is half off.

I’m seven years older and a good deal more experienced in relationships than Fanny, so what gives? Why does her presence of mind elude me in all the most important ways, in all the most important moments?

This is what I was thinking as I was walking to the post office today. Why wasn’t I just born wise? What is the purpose of all this fumbling towards sense? Couldn’t I have been more like Abdullah? I would have been spared a good deal of false starts and heartaches.

Then I thought: Because I’m a writer. Because I’m a writer, I was born a well-meaning, good-hearted, foolish girl. Because I’m a writer, I have some comic foibles that entertain more than myself. Because I’m a writer, there is a path to wisdom. If it had been easy, there would have been no story to tell. There would have been no point in speaking. If I were all alone, the Buddha on the mountaintop (to steal from Reality Bites), there would be no one up there to relate to me, and no benefit to all my wisdom. Because I’m down here mucking it out, I get to tell stories that are also, on occasion, lessons. It is a peerless joy, purpose. I can say, Here is point A: silliness. If you want to get to point B, which is marginally less foolish, I have recently discovered the secret to doing so, and it is X.

Actually, it is Islam, but that’s a little tangential.

My current suggestion is to read Mansfield Park. It is an incomparable study on patience, modesty, and the will of God making things turn out all right in the end. It still shocks me. Every time! It all turns out all right. Sometimes we just have to ride out the rough wave of sticktoitidness. Definitely holding to your principles is key. Holding to your romanticism, or your faith in the fancy promises of others…not always a great idea.

I know. I read it in a novel once.