>Where have I been? I wish I had taken the time to chronicle it all along the way. I have been enjoying summer with my wonderful boyfriend. I have been starting the most trying school year of my life (with one notable exception which was so all-around-bizarre that I have chosen not to take it into account), and I have been slogging through a difficult semester in graduate school. All at once.

I used to pride myself on being a very adaptable person. And relative to many, I suppose I am. But what I have learned about myself this year is that change takes its toll on me. Perhaps it always has, and I have never been as chameleonesque as I had believed, but NOW, I have achieved awareness of it. And frankly, I think I prefer ignorance. Oh! Or perhaps it is that as I have grown up, I have become more of a creature of habit, or better said, comfort. By that, I mean that maybe I know myself better now, and with that greater self-knowledge, I make more suitable choices, enjoy them, and I feel out of sorts when change occurs. I like that interpretation. It’s far more like the me I thought I knew than considering that perhaps I was just getting “set in my ways” or, God forbid, in a rut.

I am taking a class this semester from a wise old sage of a professor who continually makes the statement, “Life is an empathy test.” You know what? He is absolutely right. I think of it all the time. He also used some magical words one night in class that completely shifted my world: “You are not the only one, and you are not to blame.” I heard those words in the midst of what had been one of the most trying situations I’ve ever endured with a five-year-old student. Five weeks into the school year as I was going home (or to graduate school) right on time, exhausted from having spent the entire day trying to keep him from hurting himself or someone else, trying to ensure that at least one person was learning in spite of him and/or trying to figure out what caused his spontaneous outbursts, I learned that I was not the only one and that I was NOT to blame. On one glorious Friday, I received a 161 page therapy report detailing TWO years of private therapy to try and identify and modify all the same behaviors I was noticing in my class. You mean, I’m not a complete failure as a teacher? I did not get a $50,000 college education simply to be reduced to functioning essentially as an animal trainer? What a relief! If only I could have read those words and felt that reassurance a month earlier, perhaps I would not have called my doctor seeking some kind of pharmaceutical therapy. Clearly, God knew the report was on its way, because my doctor, usually very prompt, has yet to return my phone call! For that, I am grateful.

I have been taking a Masters level statistics class. For whatever it’s worth, I’ve learned that it bears the distinction of being my first “B” in grad school, but when I consider that it very well might have been my first “C” which would have required taking it again, for that, too, I am grateful. And the professor has assured me that not one single person will ever ask me what grade I made in his statistics course. Then I felt sorry for him. Bad enough that he had to stand up there for three hours every week in front of a classroom full of future social scientists and try to make us as excited as he was about mean, median and mode . . . but to know that no one will ever ask or care what grade we made in his class. I just don’t think I could get out of bed for that every morning.

Life is starting to shift onto a more even keel these days. I cannot believe Thanksgiving is next week — it used to feel like such a milestone, and now it just feels like another holiday that has crept up too soon. I think that starting school two weeks later than usual really did a number on me. Back to my adaptability deficit, I guess.

Anyway, perhaps it’s a lesson I must learn about myself to help me to better understand others. I have always been the “call at the last minute to go to the movies” friend. Now, I think I know how frustrating that must have been for my friends. I have also figured out that the more structure I have, the better I function. It’s something I wish I would have known about myself a long time ago, because I feel like I might have been much more productive. Don’t worry — I am not forsaking my capricious nature altogether. I’ve still got it. It just seems that I have to put it on hold from time to time in order to honorably fulfill some of the life-roles I have chosen for myself: friend, girlfriend, student, teacher. And for some of the life roles which have chosen me: sister, daughter, aunt.

It feels good to write again. I love it so much that I question why I leave it behind sometimes. When I know that I can pick up a pen or a computer and spill out whatever words are swimming around on my tongue, whether on the tip or at the back, and life will immediately be better. Perhaps that is what I should vow to myself.

Perhaps.