Anxiety & Melancholy

Things have stepped up at work. I'm trying to get my bearings--I'm grateful for the challenge--but I'm nervous. And I think it's appropriate to feel that way. I've had to remember to pray, to ask God for help when I feel that I am out of my depth. That has been so good to remember. I can ask for help. Not only from my capable coworkers, but from my ultimate helper.

But I'm also nervous about the thesis. And the Independent Study. Last night I attended my advisor's Tuesday night class--the class I would have been in had the IS not been approved. It was refreshing to discuss a selected reading with other people again. I swear. I feel like Emily Dickinson tucked away at the homestead. An Ivory Tower Sylvia Plath writing in solitude. There is some romance to it--toiling away alone with only one voice (that of my advisor) directing my revisions...but it is not without its challenges.

I enjoyed the class; I'm going back next week so I can benefit from the conclusion of the discussion about Wallace Stevens (I've decided to make him part of my Independent Study since one aim of that course is to engage a poet with whom I'm not familiar). Solitary confinement aside, I'm glad I'm doing what I'm doing--on my own terms.

Now for the sadness. I am steeling myself against the encroachment of a real melancholy--my grief for my father a steady ache, and something else, too, something I don't understand, settling in.