Vodka Is My Friend, or Would Be

So I was feeling pretty good today, for a while. I had made some free time (i.e., not specifically scheduled time wherein I might catch up on the hundreds of prjocts of mine suspended in mid-production) during the last few days. I had reconnected with Thomas. I was feeling capable of writing my summary/reaction for Iberian Anthropology despite a paucity of support from the class itself. And I was eager to schedule my classes for fall.

Everything was good; then, this morning, I got to actually schedule my classes for next semester, and suddenly that knot in my stomach rewound around itself once again. And so here I am, feeling very anxious. Two of the classes I need for my major are scheduled at the very same time that I need to be home to meet my children’s bus from school. This is very very unfortunate. More than unfortunate; it is eating me. This is not a sane or helpful way to react, but here I am, stomach knotted and feeling like I ought to take a few shots of vodka (it’s 3:30 in the afternoon).

I hate not having total control over my school schedule; I have run out of most of the wiggle room I did have, since the pool of necessary classes is shrinking as I get closer and closer to a degree. While this means the end is near (yay! I won’t have to miss the buses after I finish college!), it also means making harder choices about balancing school and home until that diploma is in my hands. This has always been a point of great anxiety for me, and it’s only getting sharper (the point, that is).

Hence the stomach knot, which can only be untied by alcohol. (Wow; that DEFINITELY sounds like a problem. I ought not to drink. And don’t—at least not at 3 p.m. on a Monday. Just want to.) I know, of course, that this knot must be undone not by self-medication, but by a solution which includes other people. (Another problem: relying on others. Tres difícil.) I feel guilty for dragging Thomas into what I view as “my problem:” scheduling conflicts between my scholastic goals and my domestic duties. Why do I feel these must be in conflict? Why don’t I feel like they’re two halves of the same coin, or something? But I feel like school is “my problem,” despite the financial and other support Thomas has given me with school. And I feel like home duties are set in stone, never to be re-negotiated, and those duties I have (like the buses) were always mine and will always be mine—but that isn’t true either.

Why do I get so freaked out by this stuff? Why don’t I feel like everything’ll just “be okay”? I used to feel that way about life; now it’s not so easy. Why is that? Why is everything hard? Do I make it so? Why do I, or would I? Grr. I need a drink.