Well, I've finally made it through my second week of term, and I felt like I should probably post something. First, I should probably explain how classes work here (since I'm posting this on a Friday at noon and American classes happen every day). I'm taking three classes this term: Victorian Extremes (Mondays, 11a-1p), On Location in the Lakes (Tuesday, 4-6p), and Research Methodology (every other Wednesday, 1-3p or 1:30-3:30p, depending on the week). I adore my Victorian Extremes seminar. I honestly wish that all of my sems could be that engaging and interesting! And my professor is really cool. Her research interests are in biblical literature as literature and in literature. I won't have her for anything next term, but I'm seriously hoping that I can still stay in contact with her and maybe possibly work together on something because that would just be amazing! Seriously, I wish that all of my professors ever had been as amazing as Jo is. I also have her for Research Methodology, so that's exciting.
AND I've finally made some British friends! I was afraid that I would only hang out with Americans again, like last time, but the nice thing about having more than just one person in your class is that you get to meet other people - and meet them, I have done! These guys are great, and they've been so welcoming to me. They make me want to stay. Despite how miserable I sometimes feel and how intimidated I am by the other students in my class (seriously, how is everyone so much smarter?!) and how shit I feel about walking to class in the rain, I can honestly say that I would stay here just for them. Here's to hoping that we become good friends, because I could see this being a start to something amazing.
Also, I don't know why, but when it rains here, I tend to slip for no reason. I've got great treads on my shoes, but that doesn't seem to matter. If there's even a hint of rain? Nope, nope, nope. And since it's England... there's rain. It's not bad right now (actually, it's supposed to rain every day this week, but we've had two clear days in a row - of course, on days when I don't need to leave the house), but as it starts to get colder, it gets more windy (about 30mph walking back from class the other day). And my feet just don't want to stay on the ground! It's quite frustrating, as I've got eight weeks to go of class. So we'll see how this pans out. It would totally suck to fail out of my Masters because I fell so much that I just decided not to go to class. I know that that sounds super lame, but my anxiety gets overwhelming to the point that it paralyses me, and that is a distinct possibility. I know that if I can make it through this term and the first part of next, I'll be totally fine. But it just means that I might need to do my PhD elsewhere.
Anyway, last weekend was really rough for me because I had to read a book for my Extremes course (Chesterton's The Club of Queer Trades - delightful, witty, and short!), a 454-page novel for a book review, and then I had to actually write the book review, after which, I had to read and prepare a presentation for my On Location course. I didn't finish the reading for it because I was so fucking tired of reading at that point. This weekend, I have to read and prepare a presentation on the 499-page Villette (which I'm actually really excited about!), but then I have more On Location chapter readings to do (not so exciting). But since I had Research this week, I won't have it next week, which means a five-day weekend! (Read: 5 days to prepare for the next set of readings.)
Last Friday, I went into Lancaster and saw the castle and such, which was a lot of fun. My flatmates and I just went around and explored and then we came back for curry night! I got to try Strongbow with blackcurrant, which was AMAZING and made me question why bars in the US couldn't just have Strongbow on tap because it was so good. Curry night was also awesome. For £5.99 (a little under $10), you get a heaping plate of curry and some rice. There were three options for curry, so we asked to have a bit of each. It was very, very good! I love our college bar - it's nice and comfy, and it's a great place to relax and maybe watch a World Cup football match... which I did on Tuesday (GO ENGLAND!).
Anyway, I'd better get back to reading. Tomorrow night, I'm going to some industrial techno thing with a friend, and then I have my presentation on Monday, class on Tuesday, and then I'm going to the Blackpool Zoo on Wednesday (weather permitting). SO PSYCHED.
By the way, feel free to send me mail. I'm definitely feeling lonely and I miss home so much, but I'm convincing myself every single day that once I really get into my coursework, I'll feel better. Here's to hoping.
To send me mail, address the envelope:
Bethany Dahlstrom
Graduate College
Alexandra Park
Lancaster University
Lancaster LA2 0PF
United Kingdom
It should cost about $1.20, and I should get the letter in about a week :)
Love to everyone back home and please, please stay in touch. Miss you all.
I've been struggling so much with loss these past two weeks. I miss my friends and my family and my puppy and my home and my bed and my familiarity with things and my car. I miss having a little bit more freedom. I miss having a boyfriend (but mostly, I miss the man that I had the honour of dating for a little over seven months). I miss random coffee dates and reading literary magazines and watching hours upon hours of TV shows (even the shitty ones that I made fun of). I miss singing. I feel like I've lost my voice coming here, in some ways.
Adele makes me cry. Sob, really. I want so much for people to realise how loved they are. Not a single person in this world doesn't matter somehow, to someone or something. And yet we treat each other like shit sometimes. Our own desires get in the way of common courtesy. We slam the door when we get home from a hard day at work. We shoot dirty looks at someone on the bus whose music is playing "too loudly". We play our music too loudly because we want to block out the memories of that fight we got in last night. We make fun of someone for dressing in skimpy clothes or sleeping around. We sit alone in the dark at night and wonder if we'll ever become something more. We wonder if it's true that everyone dies alone, in the end. If maybe, no matter how many surround you as you leave this world, the journey is ultimately yours. If maybe, in that last moment, as you draw your last breath, you'll be struck with the consciousness that you have either achieved everything that you ever wanted or nothing that ever mattered.
Life doesn't work like that. It's full of ups and downs, and "the good things don't always soften the bad things, but vice-versa, the bad things don't necessarily spoil the good things and make them unimportant." We're stuck in this paradox where everything we say and do is simultaneously important and worthless. In the end, it may not matter. But it matters to us. It matters to the people with whom we come into contact. And despite what we say, we care so much. Even people who say that they don't care, for one reason or another, have some reason, some drive, that negates their claim. Even someone who claims that he or she can't care has something keeping him or her alive. It could be a conviction. It could be a desire. It could be a principle. It still stands that something keeps them alive. Even people who commit suicide (even if "nothing matters anymore") have made a choice, however hopeless they felt beforehand.
How we interact with people can impact our dreams and goals and desires. If we walk around feeling worthless, chances are, we're going to treat ourselves as such. But you can't just rely on one person to make you feel loved. What happens when that person goes away? What happens when they can't operate in the same capacity and you're stuck in a dark place, where you feel like you're locked in a small room with a stiff bed and too few pillows, wondering if you're ever going to feel whole again? How do you move forward? How do you move on? How do you wake up every morning and convince yourself that you're important enough to get out of bed and do something with your life?
It's frustrating when you look back at a relationship and you see all of the flaws. I wish that I had been less petty when you told me that you needed to hang out with other people because I know now that I fucked you over in that regard. I left you with a huge hole in your life. And although I'm sure that you'll find other people to hang out with, you're right - I can't let go. I can't let go because I force myself to remember the good times. The times when I wasn't crying, yelling, screaming, putting my foot down for what I thought I "deserved". The truth it, I didn't deserve any of it. I wasn't worth your time. But I accept that you gave it to me because that's the only way I can get you to accept that you were, you are, so worth mine.
But it's not just romantic (or... whatever) relationships that I struggle with. It's all of them. Every relationship I have ever had, I am so afraid of failing at, mainly because I have tried and failed before. I give so much of myself away to other people because I don't know what else to do. I don't know how to get people to stay. And I can't be alone. Being alone is like a death sentence for me. So I give. I give until I have nothing left, and then I keep giving. My emotional and mental energy will be depleted, and I will still find a way to give. Because for me, not giving feels like letting everyone down. Not giving means that if something bad happens to someone I love, it's my fault because I wasn't there. I expect myself to anticipate every bad thing that will ever happen and try to protect people or be there for them in spades when things go poorly.
Admittedly, being in another country is probably good for me in that regard. It forces me to see that people are just fine without me. It forces me to be less available to listen to everyone else bitch about how horrible life has been to them, how they don't deserve the pain and suffering.
At what point do you stop and ask yourself if maybe no one is really out to get you, that pain and suffering happens to everyone, and that even though someone else's life seems perfect, they may be struggling all the same. People are equipped with different strengths and weaknesses in life, and it's so unfair to compare yourself to other people... and vice versa. I'm not saying that occasionally venting is a bad thing. In fact, it is for that reason that I keep a journal (which I'm shit at updating). But perception isn't everything.
Sometimes I hate Facebook because people tend to post their absolute best on there. My newsfeed is flooded with best days, best opportunities, best smiles, best successes, best pairs, best companions. Rarely do we see the pain. Rarely do we see the stories of the work that it took to get to those successes. We want people to think that we're naturally talented in everything that we set our minds to. We want people to envy us.
Which brings me back to this idea about death. At 2am, I probably shouldn't dwell too much on these thoughts, as I have so much work to do tomorrow, but I've been left to my own devices, and I've relied on someone for far too long to get me through the nights. At what point do you take your life back into your own hands and just say that you're going to get through this? How long before you realise that sometimes you just have to walk around with an open wound and be reminded that you're only human? We're so caught up in this idea that everything has to be perfect that we're too afraid of failure.
I live in self-doubt. I live in the fear that I will never be good enough. That I will never be smart enough. That I will never be... enough. For anything. For anyone. Certainly not good enough to survive this year in grad school. Certainly not motivated enough or ambitious enough to not only do my work but go above and beyond to ensure my future success.
Why is it that when someone dies, we like to gather around and remember only the good bits? People don't really talk about substance abuse or depression or little things like being messy (unless it feeds into a funny anecdote). When someone dies, people post these eloquent eulogies on Facebook and blogs and Tumblr and announce to the whole world that this person lived. They did things new and noteworthy and perfect. They took the world by storm and conquered it. Why don't we ever talk about the struggle, the fights, the pain? Is it because loss is already painful enough? Is that why we grab onto the best bits and try desperately to hold out hope that we'll feel that way again some time?
I tend not to pick fights. If I were to die tomorrow, people could say a lot of bad things about me, but I don't think a single one would. Because we look at the life of someone else and struggle to find meaning for our own. Someone who's taken away "young" can impact us especially, as we say that they "haven't really lived." What defines that?
Who sat down one day and wrote down a list of things to do in life to fully experience all it has to offer?
For my part, I want to live my own life. I want to make my own mistakes and learn from them. And if my biggest triumph was simply getting out of bed every day, then I think that I have still really lived, even if I die tomorrow. Sure, there would be a lot that I hadn't gotten to do, but just because we have expectations for someone else's life doesn't make that life any more mediocre or void if they don't meet our vision for them. It just means that they've gone down a different path. And there's nothing wrong with that.
People don't need to do something that's notable in human history in order to be notable in someone's history.
For now, maybe just let it suffice that no matter what you decide to do, there will be someone here who will still love you. You could decide that you really just want to stay at home and watch TV and read books and work to live. So be it. That's your life. That's not mine. And I will still love you. Embrace your regrets and keep moving forward. That's all we can do. Keep pressing on. Because if you don't, what's the point of trying at all?
When you die, no matter how you go, if you even got a split second to ask yourself if you're doing what you really want to do, what would your answer be?
I came to England. If that's all that I get out of this... Okay. And if I fail out of my Masters programme because I become overwhelmed by my depression... Okay. So I'm not the person that I'd like to be. But maybe that's just because I don't know what kind of person I am yet. I'm so wrapped up in what I think everyone expects me to be that I've never aimed for self-discovery. My path has been one shadowed by perceived expectations. Every time I sit down to figure out who I am and who I want to be, I am overcome by fear that I will disappoint someone.
Truth is, you can't make everyone happy. That's just impossible. Hell, you might not even be able to find happiness yourself. But isn't it worth a damn to just try it? Just to see what happens?
//The storms are raging on the rolling sea and on the highway of regret.//
As I write this post, I am listening to "Concerning Hobbits" (Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring - scroll to the end to listen to "Steward of Gondor", which is what inspired this post title and headings) on high (with my headphones in, so as not to disturb my flatmates). THIS POST IS BEST READ WITH THE SONG ON REPEAT AND A CUP OF TEA FROM WHICH TO SIP. There is something so entirely soothing about a good soundtrack, and although I haven't listened to anything else by him, except Gangs of New York, I adore these scores so completely that if I had to pick just one soundtrack to listen to for the rest of my life... well, scratch that - I'm in love with Hans Zimmer's work as well... but you get the point. When I listen to this and close my eyes, as I'm doing right now, I can almost picture the rolling hills and greenery and villages, things which I no longer need to close my eyes to see. As most (if not everyone) reading this knows, I am now in England. Tolkien had stated in a letter once that the Shire was based on rural England, and although I've not read the letter myself, it's not hard to imagine, especially with this soundtrack running through my head and a cup of tea in my hands as I look out my window and see the British architecture (albeit townhouses) with the hillside in the background. It probably helps that I'm finally unpacked and have placed an array of scones beneath the window through which I now glance at the beautiful scenery before me.
Today is my fifth day in England, and I simultaneously feel like I just arrived and that I've been here forever. Mum always told me that I settle in quickly and make friends even faster, but I doubted her on that one (I shouldn't have). Even on my second day here, I was already explaining the bus system to freshers and telling them which bus they wanted to be on. I already knew where most of the stores that I wanted to visit were and could navigate around the city centre without an issue. That's not to say anything about campus. While I've mastered one route to my courses, I feel like it's going to take me a bit to get the hang of things around here.
Arrival was easy enough - although there was a bit of turbulence, landing was easy enough, and then I found my uni's table quite easily. The journey getting to my uni's table, on the other hand, was a bit of an ordeal. I managed to get through Border Control in record time (no more than two minutes, but why is it that my mind always blanks when the BA asks me things like, "What's your name?" and "Why are you studying literature?") but once I collected my bags, I had to then find something called The Station. I made the mistake of not grabbing a trolley, assuming that The Station had to be close. I was wrong. I walked about fifteen minutes down long passageways (at a fairly brisk pace, so I feel like I walked about a mile) before I found where I needed to go. My arm was so sore after that that I couldn't lift things for about two days after. Anyway, got all checked in and thankfully I only had to wait about fifteen minutes for the shuttle, which dropped me right off at my college, where reps were waiting to show us where to go. Grabbed my luggage and followed my rep, who took us to the Porter's Lodge. Here, every college (within the uni) has a Porter's Lodge, which is like a security office. This is where you pick up your keys, report issues, etc. I never really had to deal with them in Oxford because I wasn't living in halls, but in Oxford, they stop tourists and non-college students from getting in. Showed them my passport, and they gave me the keys to my very own townhouse. One of the reps looked at the housing tag on my keys and began to lead me off. We had a bit of an issue when my key didn't work in the flat... until he realised that he had taken me to building 16, room 9, instead of flat 169. He got someone else to take me to the right flat, and here I am!
The picture to the left is a shot of the courtyard behind my townhouse, which is basically the view I have every day, as my window faces this way. I'm a little disappointed that I don't have a room that faces the hills, but our bathroom window does, so at least you can feel like you're in the middle of the English countryside while you take a shower. Under that is a picture of the houses that surround mine. We're basically in a quad, where the other houses that make up the square are all townhouses (and seem to be occupied by mostly families with children.) My other flatmates seem really nice. They're all women (even nicer). One's from PA, one's from Costa Rica, and one's from China. We should have an interesting year, and everyone seems to be interested in actually having a family dinner type of thing, so that could be fun! We're all from different fields, so I'm looking forward to hearing about what everyone else is studying. It took me a few days, and I'll skip the boring details, but I'm finally completely unpacked, and today was registration, so I'm all set to begin classes next week. I don't have any more orientation to attend.
There are many paths to tread.
One of the things that I've been facing most in my time here thus far has been my anxiety. From trying to navigate the airport by myself to worrying about silly things like icy walkways to hearing from a (mis-informed) cashier at the uni that my loan money wasn't going to come to me at all because "money laundering is illegal", my anxiety has been through the roof. Yesterday, I went out and bought some Twinings Pure Peppermint tea, and that has really made all the difference today as I write this post. It feels excellent to just sit back and sip on tea, especially with this cold that I can't seem to kick. Despite having taken Airborne since I left the States, I managed to catch a cold on my first day here, and it's been progressively getting worse. Today, I started coughing, which I actually think is a good sign, because once the coughing subsides, I should be fine. It's just a tad bit annoying to meet your tutors with a cold (which I did yesterday, and they all seem lovely!), so that's been driving my stress levels up as well. I don't want to miss any courses, although I've just discovered that they're run a bit differently here (which I kind of already knew). While you won't be punished for not attending a tutorial because your grade in each one is based off a 5,000 word essay at the end of term, I don't want to miss anything at all. I won't have to have my dissertation (thesis) topic finalised until the end of Lenten Term (some time in April, I think), but my dissertation is worth half of my final marks for the MA. Classes are once a week, and I'm a bit nervous about the trek over to them - it takes about 20 minutes on a sunny, non-windy day, so I can only imagine how the journey will look once the rain picks up again.
Through shadow, to the edge of night, until the stars are all alight.
It's so easy to sit in my room and worry. What will happen if I miss class? What if I don't get all of my books in time? What if I don't read all of the books that I need to? What if my tutors hate me? What if my fellow students hate me? What if the path ices and I can't get to class? (We should all remember last year's fiasco when I went to Bath and it snowed and I couldn't go anywhere because whenever I tried to step anywhere, I fell - and that was just slushy snow!) What if I don't finish my essays in time? What if I don't complete the book review and conference proposals by the 15th? What if the conference proposal gets rejected? For that matter, what if the book review gets rejected? What if I can't complete my MA in time? What if my loan money doesn't come through? What if...? I hate that question sometimes. I hate that I focus on that instead of the good things.
Mist and shadow cloud and shade.
Sometimes, it's hard to see the end result or to dream of what I'd like the future to look like because I'm so paralysed by all of these questions that plague me to the point that I'm clearly not getting enough sleep. As I've mentioned before, for me, the bad so often overshadows the good. I forget that I've actually made it to England, and even if I got kicked out of my programme and had to go back to the States, I can at least say that I tried and that I did make it here for a bit. I forget that even though I can't get an iPhone because I'd have to sign a two-year contract (which is not what the website originally said), I do have a phone. And even though it's not one that I particularly like, as I had to pay cash to get it since T-Mobile wouldn't accept my US debit card since it's not chip and PIN, I do have a phone with which I can communicate with people (and I'm just going to try to exchange it for something with a larger screen this week). Even though my room can get a bit hot at night, I forget that it's only £2.40 return into town and I can pick up a fan there. Even though the cashier told me that I wouldn't be getting any loan money, I now know that she was mis-informed, and I will be getting details about it tomorrow.
All shall fade.
For every problem that I've had, there is a solution - if not one I've already found, then one that will pop up soon in the future. The fact that I'm sick is not a huge deal because in a week or two, it'll be over and done with, and I can resume life as usual.
These problems that I freak out about?
All shall fade.
The view from our first-floor bathroom.
The British "first floor" is what we would typically call our "second floor". They, however, refer to our "first floor" as a "ground floor", which can take some getting used to.
This is the view to the left of our townhouse from inside. Apparently, we get some really awesome sunsets after the rain.
Here's a better shot of the courtyard - and it's sunny today!
