Alright, I have allergies

Over the past few weeks, I have spent a significant amount of time editing my fiction film and even more time insisting that it’s horrible. I wrapped production and went right into editing because I keep telling myself that “I can’t help myself” instead of giving myself anything resembling a break. I got into grad school and kept thinking about the next thing I needed to accomplish to remain deserving of it. I am like a pile of dominoes that never stops falling.

I developed a cold earlier this week that I insisted was a cold, until my partner insisted it was not. Sitting underneath a tree at a table full of pollen, explaining that the reason I was getting more congested was that I have allergies. And finally, I relented. The night before, I sat on my enclosed porch, desperate to fix my film until a friend caught me in the act as he was on his way to hang out with friends. He repeated what my professor said to me 5 hours before, “If you find yourself getting locked in Adobe Premiere for 5 hours, you need to take a break.” Touch grass, as my friend said.

I have very clear visions of the way I want certain things to go or look, and I have a very hard time adjusting when, naturally, things change. I am not friendly with change, but I would not be in the position I am in without being open to it. But I function well by pushing myself harder than anyone else is pushing me. I produce good work and think that because the outcome is desirable, the way I got there needs to be repeated each time.

This is not sustainable in the slightest, as it turns out.

The problem is that I am also aware of this. Yesterday I spent twenty minutes sitting on my porch (again) watching a carpenter bee trying to escape through a glass window and ignoring the wide-open door to his right. I suppose in a way I am doing the same thing. Trying to enter my artistic and academic processes in this way that I think works, and ignoring the alternative that will be better for me in the long run.

I’m focusing on this so much because grad school is coming up rapidly. I start my first online course (before in-person classes on August 5th) on June 1, and I’m terrified of arriving already burnt out. I want to be energized and excited and motivated and ready. I have a clear expectation of what I want. And so I’m trying to take the steps to make myself ready for that, but it’s making me more anxious and burnt out in the process. I spend so much time giving myself a hard time for not reading enough that the thought of picking up a book and actually starting is exhausting. I’ve got a lot of exciting things going on, but I’m also competing with a lot inside my mind. And for what? To not savor and celebrate those exciting things enough to truly be proud of myself? To scold myself for not doing this and this and not being good enough according to some fabricated standard in my mind? I was placing so much focus on gratitude that I don’t think I was being grateful for the right things. Today I am grateful that I am sitting across from my partner, who is often ten hours away. Today, I am grateful that I can crack jokes with my family over text and they’ll respond. Today I am grateful that I have homework to complain about. Today, I am grateful that I have been able to pursue a major in English and Film. Today I am grateful for the pollen even. I got a silly metaphor out of it.

It’s the small things and the big things. But it’s the small things that are going to center me over the next few months as I prepare. I get to start school in June! And transition in with an online class and be with my family in the meantime. I get to write poems and read poems that I published in a book. I get to lie in the sun and sit by fires. And now I’m just waxing poetic—time to return to my tree and edit my film.