Behind the surface

I finally broke last night. Actually, I started breaking in the elevator as I went to meet with a professor yesterday afternoon. Nauseous and exhausted and nearly twenty minutes late, it’s like it finally hit me: I can’t handle school. Even just a little bit of it. Just my piss ass 5 credit hours. And if I can’t handle it, I’m going to have to drop out again. And if I drop out this time, I don’t see how I’m going to go back anytime soon. Not only is a Ph.D. apparently out of my grasp, but it’s becoming increasingly clear to me that so is an M.A. I HATE this fucking illness. I HATE how much it’s taken from me. I HATE how much it just keeps taking. In my moment of profound self-pity last night I exclaimed to my walls lined with books that it’s not right. I’m too smart not to have a PhD. Didn’t my advisor say when I was an undergrad and rattling off all sorts of unique research ideas that I was going to create my own new field and be publishing like crazy? I’m too smart not to have an ...