Just another day

Like every day since I have sent in the letter, I wake up this morning in a semi-state of panic. I am getting a little better at starting the day with meditation, and it is helping a bit. But mostly I see myself as facing an abyss. This feeling is compounded, no doubt, by the immediate situation, by which I mean the fact that I do not even know where I will be sleeping tonight. At a friend's house, I start the morning with meditation, coffee, Chinese pod, and some writing on the book I am working on about the time in China. I want to go running before it gets too hot. And then? That is the question. If I had to guess, I would say I will go to the Uintahs for a couple of days of camping, one night in Park City and get back to Ogden on Friday in time for the appointment with my therapist. And then? Well, if I have three days planned out, I should not complain.

This morning, I kept feeling pulled to the option of going to grad school in Denver while teaching in Utah. On the face of it, of course, it is a crazy option. Teaching and full time graduate school and a 500 mile weekly commute--all at a time when I am exhausted. But what attracts me, not surprisingly, is the security. I can have a stable present and a path laid out to the future. So I consider contacting Denver to see if it is still possible to get in. Or I think about Utah, possibly taking a few courses this semester, whatever fits, and having that be a start to something else. All with the goal of a stable present and a path to the future. Maybe ten years ago I could have taken that route. But this is simply not where I am at right now. Not only because I am too exhausted to teach, much less teach and go to graduate school. But I need some time with the abyss, for lack of a better way put it.

I mean, if pressed (as I will be) I can lay out a couple of options for the future. Option 1 is to take the Peace Corps situation if it arises, with the possibility of starting graduate school the following fall or of spending the next year in China and then starting graduate school. Or I can do Option 1 but end up living by teaching one semester in China and then living in the states and writing/travelling the rest of the time. But the truth is, I just don't know where things will end up, and I have to get comfortable with living with this not knowing