Tonight I finally got my financial aid package from Yale. Or I should say, my estimation of debt package. I'm delighted to be admitted to Yale, I really am...but I struggle with what the point is if I can't even dream of affording it. For what Yale estimates the cost will be to me over the two years I would attend, I could put a down payment on a (good) house. For a Master's degree in an environmental field, which everyone knows does not pay itself back, like a JD or an MBA would.
That's really all I've got for tonight. How can you tell someone who grossed barely over $30K last year that they should be able to pay almost $10K out of pocket? How can you expect them to pick up $50K of debt over the next two years (and that's just for the nine months of the school year)???
I am mystified. What happened to the cost of education in America? Are we INSANE to even discuss paying this much for a two year degree in a field that, like all altruistic fields, will only ever pay just enough to live on? How could I even possibly dream of paying that $50K back, on top of the $10K I owe from college (after the $5K I've already paid)??
Maybe they should do our financial aid estimates before they admit us. That way we can look at the numbers, sigh, and say, "Oh, nevermind. I'd rather have housing."
This is nuts. That's all I've got for tonight. This is nuts.
March 24, 2008
March 23, 2008
Protracted Feelings of Loss
Happy Easter to any who may stumble upon my little forays into blogging.
I spent this weekend visiting my first college roommate in New Hampshire, spending a night at her apartment, a night at her parents' (wonderful, cozy, homey) farmhouse, and then returned to my native NJ, to join my mother's side of the family for Easter dinner.
I am not, generally, so much a fan of Easter as I am a fan of family. I am a true, confirmed, comfortable atheist. I have now come through loss and death in the family, and remain atheist, and so feel comfortable that it will stick. I only wish Atheist didn't sound so dark, so hopeless. I find it honest, not untruthful.
To the point, however - today was a different kind of Easter. We, the 20-30 something generation, have birthed two babies this last year, and this was the first holiday that my little second cousin (and her cousin - my third cousin??) were old enough to do more than burp. Which is to say, they wiggled and kicked, and in one case, did so quite vigorously
The afternoon's entertainment are 8 and 5 months, respectively, and it was...weird. There was almost no adult conversation (whatsoever), with the exception of a quick insertion by my uncle about his finding Bear Stearns to be a sleazy company in his professional experience, and even that was aborted when one of the babies did something exciting...like raising a leg. Or burping. Or drooling. Or all three.
I, who don't want a baby, and finally just told my mother that the subject of children was a defining point in Paul's decision to terminate our relationship, was handed a baby by my wonderful cousin-in-law, the proud (ridiculously, sweetly proud) father. I haven't held a baby (before theirs at Thanksgiving and then Christmas) since my less-fearful youth, when I babysat. So not for about...8 years.
My cousin-in-law wanted to help his wife clean up and set up (they were hosting - I have no idea why we let the new parents host), and turned, smiled, held out his child, and deposited her in my arms while I sat at the dinner table.
I'm not sure how to describe what happened next. It moved me. This beautiful (crying) little baby wiggled around and looked up at me, then out the window, then at my father (who was making old-man-gaga-for-a-baby faces - you know the type), and then back at me. And I started to bounce her gently, and smooth her hair while leaning her head on the soft part of my shoulder...and she stopped crying.
I am not an instant convert. A fairly consistent, even, and logical person, I am not someone who will be instantaneously smitten by a sweet-faced child, although I think my cousins' daughter is beautiful. It's what comes after the baby (the toddler, the child, the preteen, the teenager) that I am wary of, and it is the concessions that all of the women I know have made, that make me dread motherhood. I don't want to lose myself in the mix of childbirth, of motherhood. I don't want a husband that goes to work while I stay home, and I don't want the grass is greener resentment I've seen such bifurcation of responsibilities yield. I don't want to live a life that ends up looking like that.
But while I held the baby today I had such a moment - I was really deeply moved. And with a sudden jerk she swung her head back, and then forward, and planted her little mouth firmly on the small amount of breast showing above the line of my shirt. And that moved me too. It wasn't strange, or confusing, or peculiar - I felt as though, were she my child, I would be capable of fluidly, effortlessly feeding her, that I knew the steps without ever having practiced them, without ever having thought about how it's done. I don't know how better to express it - I was moved.
But then came the loss. Paul loved babies, and I had looked forward to the day we would be able to visit my cousins, and he could play with them. I wanted to show him that maybe I wasn't missing some piece of what he thought was important in a woman, that I too can make silly faces at children, can love them, even if I don't want them. I think I had secretly hoped that Paul and I would visit my cousins and their baby, and I would be moved, and I would discover something in myself that was deeper and more primal than my politics, my goals.
And so when I was moved, although it was not towards a desire for motherhood, I reached my head around to show him, to share the moment and the pride of connectedness - and he was not there. Was not there and won't be, and I am alone.
Even now, hours later, in the last moments of Easter, I wish I could reach out to him and share. I miss him.
I spent this weekend visiting my first college roommate in New Hampshire, spending a night at her apartment, a night at her parents' (wonderful, cozy, homey) farmhouse, and then returned to my native NJ, to join my mother's side of the family for Easter dinner.
I am not, generally, so much a fan of Easter as I am a fan of family. I am a true, confirmed, comfortable atheist. I have now come through loss and death in the family, and remain atheist, and so feel comfortable that it will stick. I only wish Atheist didn't sound so dark, so hopeless. I find it honest, not untruthful.
To the point, however - today was a different kind of Easter. We, the 20-30 something generation, have birthed two babies this last year, and this was the first holiday that my little second cousin (and her cousin - my third cousin??) were old enough to do more than burp. Which is to say, they wiggled and kicked, and in one case, did so quite vigorously
The afternoon's entertainment are 8 and 5 months, respectively, and it was...weird. There was almost no adult conversation (whatsoever), with the exception of a quick insertion by my uncle about his finding Bear Stearns to be a sleazy company in his professional experience, and even that was aborted when one of the babies did something exciting...like raising a leg. Or burping. Or drooling. Or all three.
I, who don't want a baby, and finally just told my mother that the subject of children was a defining point in Paul's decision to terminate our relationship, was handed a baby by my wonderful cousin-in-law, the proud (ridiculously, sweetly proud) father. I haven't held a baby (before theirs at Thanksgiving and then Christmas) since my less-fearful youth, when I babysat. So not for about...8 years.
My cousin-in-law wanted to help his wife clean up and set up (they were hosting - I have no idea why we let the new parents host), and turned, smiled, held out his child, and deposited her in my arms while I sat at the dinner table.
I'm not sure how to describe what happened next. It moved me. This beautiful (crying) little baby wiggled around and looked up at me, then out the window, then at my father (who was making old-man-gaga-for-a-baby faces - you know the type), and then back at me. And I started to bounce her gently, and smooth her hair while leaning her head on the soft part of my shoulder...and she stopped crying.
I am not an instant convert. A fairly consistent, even, and logical person, I am not someone who will be instantaneously smitten by a sweet-faced child, although I think my cousins' daughter is beautiful. It's what comes after the baby (the toddler, the child, the preteen, the teenager) that I am wary of, and it is the concessions that all of the women I know have made, that make me dread motherhood. I don't want to lose myself in the mix of childbirth, of motherhood. I don't want a husband that goes to work while I stay home, and I don't want the grass is greener resentment I've seen such bifurcation of responsibilities yield. I don't want to live a life that ends up looking like that.
But while I held the baby today I had such a moment - I was really deeply moved. And with a sudden jerk she swung her head back, and then forward, and planted her little mouth firmly on the small amount of breast showing above the line of my shirt. And that moved me too. It wasn't strange, or confusing, or peculiar - I felt as though, were she my child, I would be capable of fluidly, effortlessly feeding her, that I knew the steps without ever having practiced them, without ever having thought about how it's done. I don't know how better to express it - I was moved.
But then came the loss. Paul loved babies, and I had looked forward to the day we would be able to visit my cousins, and he could play with them. I wanted to show him that maybe I wasn't missing some piece of what he thought was important in a woman, that I too can make silly faces at children, can love them, even if I don't want them. I think I had secretly hoped that Paul and I would visit my cousins and their baby, and I would be moved, and I would discover something in myself that was deeper and more primal than my politics, my goals.
And so when I was moved, although it was not towards a desire for motherhood, I reached my head around to show him, to share the moment and the pride of connectedness - and he was not there. Was not there and won't be, and I am alone.
Even now, hours later, in the last moments of Easter, I wish I could reach out to him and share. I miss him.
March 19, 2008
Between a Rock and a Hard Place
The amount of time and activity that has passed between each of these all-too-weak blog posts is embarrassing, and amazing. I am constantly in a state of surprise at how quickly the time passes, even while seeming to drag along. I constantly wonder what it is I am racing towards, and if, when I get there, I will feel as if I missed some important part, some space that was supposed to be populated by a deep breath, some fresh air, a renewed sense of self, and an actual decision about my future.
Decision-making has become more important to me, as of late, because in January I lost the ability to make decisions, and became a bystander to my own...fate, for lack of a better word.
When I last blogged, I was in love. Terribly, wonderfully, totally taken with it, in love. I actually (I blush a little typing this) didn't know love could feel that way. I didn't know how deeply I could be consumed by my affection for another person, how completely it would permeate all the different layers of the person I thought I was.
And as a result, I couldn't begin to understand how badly it would hurt me if I lost it, which I did. In December, the man I love(d?) returned from two months in Mexico, to a version of myself that seems remarkably distant, and ended our relationship, in a fiery showdown in a hotel lobby, two weeks before I moved to Minnesota to be with him.
It almost reads like a movie, but it wasn't, and it was heart wrenching. It still is heart wrenching, every day, and I'm still trying to work through it. But as I recover, or perhaps rediscover myself -isolated from the large whole into which I had so happily and unwittingly been subsumed, I am trying to return to that list of things which "I've always wanted to try." And this blog is one of them.
I lost decision-making capability on another front in January, as well. In the day before Paul and I finalized our break up (I resent the use of 'I' as an actor in this sentence), I submitted a single graduate school application - to the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, a program about which I cared passionately, until Paul came home from Mexico, at least.
On that front, I am pleased to discover that my decision-making capacity has been restored, at least temporarily - I find myself admitted to Yale for 2008, although I'm not sure I can enroll without taking due time to mourn, some more, and to find myself, first.
So that's where I've been, and that's why the title. I was off between a rock and a hard place.
Decision-making has become more important to me, as of late, because in January I lost the ability to make decisions, and became a bystander to my own...fate, for lack of a better word.
When I last blogged, I was in love. Terribly, wonderfully, totally taken with it, in love. I actually (I blush a little typing this) didn't know love could feel that way. I didn't know how deeply I could be consumed by my affection for another person, how completely it would permeate all the different layers of the person I thought I was.
And as a result, I couldn't begin to understand how badly it would hurt me if I lost it, which I did. In December, the man I love(d?) returned from two months in Mexico, to a version of myself that seems remarkably distant, and ended our relationship, in a fiery showdown in a hotel lobby, two weeks before I moved to Minnesota to be with him.
It almost reads like a movie, but it wasn't, and it was heart wrenching. It still is heart wrenching, every day, and I'm still trying to work through it. But as I recover, or perhaps rediscover myself -isolated from the large whole into which I had so happily and unwittingly been subsumed, I am trying to return to that list of things which "I've always wanted to try." And this blog is one of them.
I lost decision-making capability on another front in January, as well. In the day before Paul and I finalized our break up (I resent the use of 'I' as an actor in this sentence), I submitted a single graduate school application - to the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, a program about which I cared passionately, until Paul came home from Mexico, at least.
On that front, I am pleased to discover that my decision-making capacity has been restored, at least temporarily - I find myself admitted to Yale for 2008, although I'm not sure I can enroll without taking due time to mourn, some more, and to find myself, first.
So that's where I've been, and that's why the title. I was off between a rock and a hard place.
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