Sorry for the long pause, readers. The beginning of the semester beckoned, and as an academic, that meant course prep, meeting with students and establishing community, and getting back into the routine of being on campus after a semester-long sabbatical. I came back to some significant changes on campus, paired with personal concerns.
While I haven’t had to deal with people with hot dog fingers or had to take up martial arts (though it would be advisable to get back into my tai chi practice), it’s felt a bit like encountering everything, everywhere, all at once.
The Everything:
1. Back to a full schedule of teaching and service after a semester of research and writing.
2. Coming back to an empty next-door office where I used to check in with my dear friend and colleague who retired last December. I frequently find myself on the verge of saying “Good Morning!” to a closed door and dark room.
3. Coping with the news that that same dear friend was just diagnosed with stage 3c high-grade serous carcinoma throughout her abdomen. I feel gutted.
4. Learning that another colleague was diagnosed with ALS last winter and is in rapid decline, needing to retire only a week or two into the semester, while his partner carries on teaching in the department and find myself at a loss for words for her.
5. Hearing from another highly regarded colleague, who was diagnosed with early-onset Parkinson’s Disease, that he is experiencing more limitations as the result of his disease and is asking for our patience.
6. Having the Chair of our Department take a partial leave to work from home to be with a child who is struggling because she puts family first (laudable, but the Department is also struggling).
7. Worrying about the state of higher education in a climate of political censorship, strong-arming, and distrust toward expertise as university after university gives up academic freedom to hold on to federal research funding.
8. Being utterly broke, financially, and worrying about paying the mortgage and buying groceries until the first full paycheck of the academic year came in because a summer stipend for summer mentoring was trickled out in multiple, tiny payments rather than lump sums while the university system adopted a new HR computer program, and training AI (the enemy!) as supplemental gig work wasn’t paying all the bills.
9. Having an appointment for a dual colonoscopy/endoscopy procedure coming up (I have Lynch Syndrome, which predisposes me to certain cancers, so I have frequent scans) and no one to take me or pick me up because my dear friend (mentioned above) is my emergency contact and “procedure person,” and she has chemo on the same day (and I wouldn’t ask her or her partner now, anyway, since they have their own shit to worry about), and now thinking that I need to take a cab to and from my procedure, knowing I’ll be in twilight haze for the ride home.
10. Asking my ex if he might be able to take me to my procedure, since he’s coming back into town to pick up his motorcycle, which is in my garage, to ride out to visit family out west, and feeling weird about that, because . . .
11. He has a habit of sticking around and not leaving because he doesn’t have a home of his own. And . . .
12. I can’t live with him for more than about a week without feeling like I’m losing myself, my space, my independence, my ability to move freely about my home.
13. Though, I really don’t mind taking care of his two sweet cats while he finds a place to live (though I’m not sure his efforts are sincere, since he can’t afford what he really wants, and, like the rest of us, he complains about needing more money, and it feels gross to hear him complain about needing more money when I support him because he wasn’t working when we divorced, and we live in a community property state, which means that he got half of the home equity while I got a second mortgage, he got half of my retirement, so I have to work longer, and I still have to pay him support money on top of that every month). I would also really like to only take care of my own four cats rather than six.
14. And while I appreciate him watching the cats and house-sitting when I need to be out of town because it doesn’t cost me a lot in pet-sitter fees, it DOES cost me in my independence and freedom when he then extends his stays (since he has a bad habit of ordering “necessary” items that don’t arrive here until after his agreed-upon date of departure, and he’s terrible about making plans, and he still uses my address as his primary, even though our divorce decree says he no longer has any interest in this property).
15. But, I’m lonely, and it’s also nice to have the company . . . for a while.
16. So, now I think I’m having a stress-related diverticulitis flare-up (or is it an ulcer?), and I’m not sure if I should get that looked at before my GI procedure or let that be the diagnostic. And then, because my dear friend was shockingly diagnosed with a new cancer, and I have Lynch Syndrome, I start to think, “What if I have cancer, too?”
17. In the meantime, Trump is still president, pregnant women are being told not to take Tylenol (I’m old and had a hysterectomy to cure endometrial cancer, so I can still take it, thank goodness), free speech is being limited to those who agree with the president, healthcare costs, food, gas, and other staples of living in the USA are becoming more expensive, hate is exploding across the nation for anyone who doesn’t think like you do, and the Rapture didn’t actually happen (I don’t think . . . anyway, I’m still here).
The Everywhere is really everywhere, and the All at Once is the ridiculously compressed timeframe of the past several weeks.
So, I’ve been absent. Please forgive me. I will try to do better.
Once I pull myself together.