too deaf, dumb, and blind to see the damage I've done
I told him I feel uncomfortable talking to him about such things because he is at such a greater vantage point than I am. He offered little consolation except to give me the impression he thought my feelings were silly.
So often my fears come out sounding like I'm over-dramatizing a situation. A persons natural response to my anxiety is, "that's ridiculous".
I'm not even sure what one does as a backup plan in my situation. All I know is academia, really, and good customer service. If I don't earn a job in the former and refuse to work in the latter, I am lost.
He suggested I try getting advice from someone else.
What I need is creativity right now. I don't know how to make flow-charts anyway. Why do I appeal to him? I'm so spiritually guided and he's so paper-trail.
I'm like the pin-ball wizzard, you know? Deaf, dumb, blind... but I play by sense of smell. By intuition. I play a mean pin-ball. Such a subtle wrist. Or is it a supple wrist?
My alarm clock makes a loud, single, sharp beep when the alarm has been going for one hour. This morning I awoke in shock thinking my alarm had long since sounded. Actually it was just my phone alerting me to a textpage expressing faith in my abilities. I'm not sure which abilities evoke faith. Perhaps my cooking skills.
My boss in New York used to say gradschool was a waste of time and that I ought to instead open a restaurant. Perhaps he was right.
Over coffee and frosted shredded-wheats I discussed my deaf, dumb, and blind feelings to my pet of a roommate. She said IU has a good way of making the students feel deserted and unequipped for the outside world. She said a Master's degree is significant for many "real world" jobs. It may perhaps only put me behind a desk, but a desk with benefits at least. She said private highschools may hire me if I prefer to teach.
Above all, though, she understood the demeaning attitude projected by the faculty here at IU. She and I have very similar pasts - small, private, liberal arts universities, studying English, being highly regarded as undergraduates. And I'm not bragging, I just was popular for being brilliant. Here at IU, they say it's debatable that I'm brilliant.
I accidentally hit myself in the face so hard yesterday that I made my nose bleed. So maybe I am just foolish. Maybe I went to college with idiots. Maybe I was the special kid they placated out of pity.
Last night as I expressed these feelings of inequality to him, he said that in marriage we are gaining from each other. So that means I gain his successes... and he gains my deaf, dumb, and blindness?
This is what I'm saying: If I don't get a PhD and become a professor then all I am is a burden wife with a $58,000 school-loan debt.
He said I give him purpose.
Purpose to not do what I have done, no doubt.
