Too Much

It's just too much.

The shooting at Virginia Tech. Harry Reid's declaration that we've lost the war in Iraq. Anti-war groups protesting at the Coast Guard Academy's graduation ceremony. My own alma mater fighting a lengthy court battle against their Board of Trustees. All of which apparently require my attention and active support, lest my apathy doom a school or a nation.

My mother's diagnosis of lung cancer. The endless rounds of doctors' appointments and medications and social workers and trips to the free clinic. My own struggles to get my health and my finances in order while I'm still young enough to do something about it. All of which also require my attention and active support.

Three rejection letters from grad schools. A near-deadly six month holding pattern while I try not to lose focus in the face of all this other stuff. The realization that even if I salvage that lost first year, it will be another four years after that until I can put my skills to work for the country the way I want to do. The realization that there are quicker avenues available, but that taking them would blow my current life into tiny, glittering pieces. The constant, dragging knowledge that the point where I am professionally, academically, romantically, and politically is the point where I should have been ten years ago. All of which eats up what little attention I have left.

I spend hours and hours with my best friend interactively making up stories which never get written down. I spend hours and hours writing letters which never change officials' or newspapers' opinions. I send off e-mails to friends and relatives who have better things to do than answer me. I hear over and over again that I'm a great writer and that failing to use my talent is a crime against the universe. I remind myself over and over again that complying with the universe's laws does not guarantee success. I blog just to take the pressure off.

It's a bit like body-surfing. I'm carried along by momentum one minute, then the next minute I'm underwater and being tumbled like gravel. It's kind of like that, only without the beach.

It's just too much.