How many times a day does one need to log on and check their transcript for finalized grades before becoming a complete loon? Well, I hope it's not less than 70. It's funny how it's so damn important to see this official statement of evaluation even though it is offered by people who lack the capacity to do so. I am waiting on one transcript out of three, know what it will say, but am prepared to pounce if it is screwed up.
Somewhere during the last two weeks of our term, Unorganized Professor must have flustered to the point of a volcanic paper explosion. For unrevealed reasons, he had gone missing for five sporadic weeks, and this meant the end of our course was lining up to involve two large exams and one cumulative final. This weight at the end, of that which I never felt I began, seemed realistic enough to perpetuate an insane level of The Doubt. In the midst of Unorganized Professor assumed distress, his decision to postpone Doomsday was pulled out from the Stupid Idea Drawer. Suddenly my end of the world (last Friday) was extended through an agonizing weekend, as now the holiday was to fall on Monday.
The end of the world. No, that isn't right. Monday saw the end of the current world. It is only a temporary freedom from formula, or structure, but I am too bored of that topic to bother with it here and now.
71 times? No, not yet. The transcript is still unavailable.
In addition to those huge exams which The Doubt said I could never be prepared for, Doomsday also included my last appointment with
resident doctor #4 for awhile. Three weeks without a touchstone or influx of course work is mentally disastrous. I always look at
resident doctor #4 as a series of several floating buoys, strategically spaced apart in a line, which lead out into the ocean. It's my job to swim five miles straight out toward the horizon-- which for me, a weak swimmer, is an impossible feat. I reluctantly enter the water and swim, knowing I'll die. Upon nearing each buoy, I find myself either swimming right by or perhaps treading, only to reflect on how The Doubt insisted I would be grasping and gasping. Finding a true safety which exists, and then being able to trust rather than question it, is allowing me to obtain incomprehensible levels of life.
Very nice, very reassuring, but right after reconnecting with
resident doctor #4 in January I need to endure another three week stretch of ocean. I didn't ask where his vacation will take him. How could I supress the sneer? Upon hearing of the domestic, or internationally overrun postcard city, I would be apt to internally gloat. Certainly,
resident doctor #4 will not be traveling anywhere exciting enough to bend my ear.
Spaced between his January buoy offerings are rescheduled physical exams. Medical testing, intake forms, foreign hands, questions which cannot be answered concisely-- all postponed from November. Could this be due to a dramatic increase in health insurance benefits which will begin on January 1st? Perhaps. The media presents my illness as epidemic to draw the attention of fascinated people who cannot suppress their libido, when in reality, my illness is rare and always brings a flurry of excitement in the medical domain. It's predictable-- multiple doctors will interrupt their schedule, squeeze into the examining room, and all consult. I'll be naked on a table and acting unaffected as they are enlightened by my answers and handheld into a very complex world.
One thing I never wanted to do was lead.
Can I just stab myself now?
72? Nope.
Now I'm worried. What if no additional physician is summoned? What if I am not good enough to warrant fantastic anticipation? A lack of attention would equal what size? Perhaps in an effort to spike the deep, I should order clenbuterol and purposely lock myself out of the house for the next few weeks. This morning was cold enough to scrape ice from the windshield of the car-- sleeping out there would facilitate the physical cause.
So Doomsday arrived and I stood behind
resident doctor #4's chair. The question is:
How am I going to learn to live without anxiety? He also wants me to restart and futz around with 'my choice' of medicine over the next few weeks to explore the emotions it offers. The second question: where do the numerous varieties of libido go when they are suppressed? If hunger, anxiety, and sexual desire are turned down, where are they- - they do still exist -- and so, what or how are they driving me now?
What did this medicine do? Foremost, it erased meaning and importance. Would I rather die than to have a tow truck driver from AAA come and jump start my car 10 times in one month? Yes, of course. That exact scenario did happen, and at the time, I didn't care whatsoever. Now I do, now I'm embarrassed. It was only after the medicine left my system that I sought out and installed a new battery in that car.
On obsessive login #73, my favorite thin number:
It appears I am taking my father to lunch.
Cumulative 4.0 at university 1, 2, and 3.
Eat that, Dad.
The medicine completely alleviated anxiety, but differently from how anti-anxiety medications have performed, and this lack of libido caused structure to break apart. I don't know how to keep life in order without an iron grip. It's as though 'strict and unwavering' is good because an unfamiliar loosening up 'is hard to keep contained' and at the current time, allows everything to easily go to hell. There is no concrete sense of balance as to how far life is allowed to loosen up. It might not be chaos, but any straggling from regiment obviously feels wrong.