let's start thinking about when the sun will warm the ground

It has been a real mess of a break, in spite of all the days leading up to break. R & J is going well with the freshman, I'm sort of caught up on plans, the medication is out of my system, and I've been sleeping well. The house, for once, is sort of warm and cozy, and James is working off a serious sinus infection by snoring on the couch. We brought in the new year with weird drinks and Liz's new beau and Apples to Apples and one of the quickest games of Trivial Pursuit I've ever played. We spent the rest of the night with venison sticks and egg rolls and Chad at the piano and me next to him with my guitar, working out the chords to "Auld Lang Syne." (In the key of G--G, D, C--and so on, with a brief Em at the close.) I'm in love with a new band that I can't get enough of. James and I have started a weight loss contest that will get me to the gym at least three times a week. So far, kicking the fried food and red meat out of my diet has been okay, and any cookie and holiday-treat temptations are out of my way.

My room is a mess, and cold, and I don't want to go in there. The Good Doctor has turned into someone mean and rotten who I no longer recognize, and without saying so, I'm certain I ended the friendship. I don't know if I'm sad because with this came a sense of relief, or if I'm sad because I've lost something that I once loved dearly. Or if I'm sad because I couldn't make this work, or if I'm sad because I let myself, so strongly, throw myself into that friendship. In the way that I've grown and changed and matured so much that to think of who I was with him three years ago disgusts me. It angers me that I once was that person.

I know these things will work themselves out--it can't end badly, it just can't--but as of today I feel a failure at the "life" part of life. The work part is fine, the school part is okay, but the money part, which led to the loss of the Good Doctor part--a mess. I feel walked on. I feel evil. I failed.

On the way home from Mankato on the 1st, James and I had a real conversation about all of this. He said things to me like you expect to much of yourself and you have to give yourself more credit for surviving this how you do. Nice of him to say, but my response could only be: yes, but what other options do I have. I could decide not to get out of bed, I suppose, but really? I have to survive this, and it doesn't make me spectacular. I have no other choice. I can't get credit for dealing with life.

Hm. I'm getting frustrated easily, finding that I am being a bit hard on myself. But it's impossible not to be. I will never, ever say: There's nothing you can do about this. Or it's not your fault. I think, mostly, high school teaching has made me realize that there's a lot of shit that I don't know, and I get mad at myself for not knowing it. Why haven't I read more? Why didn't the obvious answer just come to me? What the hell.

Today I went to school, found myself in the cold, cold classroom reading Machiavelli while rubbing my hands over my arms to create warmth. An ice storm hit Rochester while I was in the classroom, coated my car with a thick layer of ice, like frosted glass. I lost my phone for awhile. I faught with the Good Doctor over email; he said he was turning off my phone because I haven't paid my part of our joint contract, says I'm not paying him because I want to fuck him over. He is convinced that I'm evil, full of sabotage. He is accusing me of things that I couldn't dream of doing, of thoughts that never entered my head. Malicious thoughts. I've never had someone accuse me of such horrible things. Have I ever made anyone feel like this? I hope not. I told him to find a therapist.

I have two full weeks left of first semester, then two full quarters of teaching left at Century, and already I don't want to leave. Already I can't remember May. Where was I last May? How was the weather warm, how was the dirt in our driveway blowing up with a gentle breeze, how was the corn growing so green, and how was I reading under the tree house and watering the plants and driving with the window down? Winter has already been so hard on me, weakening my bones, climbing into their hollows and freezing me from inside out. And it's just started.

So, I'm thinking of summer. I'm thinking of flip flops and walking into a grocery store to cool off. I'll be sad, devastated, at being done with school, but I'll have a moment of freedom. In spite of how broke I'll be. Maybe a job in Rochester will be in my queue, and I'll get to stay here--my number one goal right now. Maybe I'll be teaching summer school here, maybe I'll be teaching Day Camp here, at their YMCA. Maybe I'll have found a teaching program on the East Coast that is paying me to come there for awhile, maybe I'll be a writer living out a grant, writing the poems I should've been writing in these last months. Maybe I'll be doing the little things that have been in my to-want-to-do queue for so long: learn a little bit of Polish, meaning enough to impress you; take a woman's self defense course; really get a green thumb; learn to knit, really, so I can give you a scarf; train for half a marathon; read a load of classics; organize a book of essays, with a theme, that I write from scratch; write those 5 poems that I haven't given myself time for in the last weeks, those poems I promised I'd tackle over break, those poems that real stupid life, that real stupid feelings stopped from being written. No time. No motivation. No hope of success. Too cold.