Leaving

Monday, February 21, 2011
11:57AM

Sitting in E.Moore Hall waiting just a little while until it's time to go teach Spanish. Today is less a teaching day and more a guiding day, as the assignment was pre-created for me by the textbook. They have to write compositions today. I think I'll play Latin music for them while they write. Sometimes in that class... I know as the teacher I shouldn't say this... but I just feel like... what's the point? I mean, they have to start somewhere, I guess, but I feel like I can't really do much to help them learn. I just teach the form then meander through the rows of desks checking on progress, answering questions, and saying yes, you can do this.

Taught Zumba this am. That was rough. I couldn't sleep last night, so around midnight I took a sleeping pill. I figured I'd immediately relax and fall asleep. But I just got hyper, had songs running through my head, and was up 'til after 2am. When John woke me up at 7, I was more than reluctant. Everything hurt, and I was so groggy. Teaching, I felt like I couldn't move. I think I sweat excessively just from exhaustion. I know I was having a rough time because usually I drink one cup of coffee and am ready to go for it . This am, I had two and still just felt like I weighed a million pounds. I couldn't remember choreography and wound up making up shit on the fly. Ugh. But might as well let it go, because as we learned long ago, we all have those days.

I decided to lift a little, too. Why?... because I'm insane I suppose. It really doesn't make sense to do that when you were just struggling for sixty minutes as it was. But I get anal about my workout schedule, and because it was a Monday morning, I just had to do giant sets before I left.

Went home this weekend. Did a lot of reading while I was there, some writing. Visiting was minimal. I was really excited about going home, just to be somewhere calm and familiar, but the opposite was true. Old, stagnant ideas (and I know every kid who goes to college and then goes home says this, but I'm talking some seriously upsetting ideas like border-line racism and homophobia), and I just seem to be under foot when I'm there. Everyone at home, save my Pap-paw maybe, was unhappy, bugged, sick, or depressed.

I've been emotional all weekend, too. I think I just need a break. Did a lot of crying, which always makes me feel a little spastic.

Friday night my parents and i went to dinner at ChooChoo's, and I remember just sitting there having this "Ah-hah" moment of just how different the culture is in New Martinsville vs. Morgantown. Just a 90-minute drive, and you have guys in flannel shirts and camo hats telling their friends, "You're gonna be in TROUBLE!" as opposed to a bunch of young hippies in a coffee shop yammering on about their ideals. Idk, I miss home. But I feel like I cna' tbe there for an extended period of time anymore. I just don't think that way, that it's OK to be angry at other people because they're immigrants, that it's OK to walk out of a room because there's a shot of lesbian couple (holding hands, having coffee) on television. I miss my family, but I just can't relate to them anymore.

John and I were talking in his car, on Saturday, sitting outside of Baristas. I was wound up about various things, and I think I just realize, sort of all at once, how short the rest of my time here probably is. I've always loved West Virginia, but at the same time, I knew I couldn't stay here after awhile. There's nothing here for me career-wise, and the ideas make me want to jump onto a bed of broken glass. But I'm going to miss so many people. Friends, best friends, and family. And that's really been just... crushing the last couple days, thinking about that. I always knew the future was coming, but it's getting closer now. I'm ready to be done with grad school now, and even while a year and a half left seems impossible to manage right now, I know... it's really not that long. My parents talk about John and me getting jobs in the area, moving in with them so we can save money to get started. That just... can't happen. I can't stay here. I can't... live in this muck. I really need to be somewhere with more sunshine and people happy to be alive, not just drudging through miserably. I'm not saying the people here are naturally miserable, but it's a Depression Era town, and the economy of the valley just isn't there. Everyone's struggling. Everyone feels a victim, and really, they are. I don't want to be a victim, I don't want to feel trapped and suffocated, and so while it's going to hurt to leave a lot of people, and with some of them it could downright kill me... I've got to get out of here.

Anyway, time to teach. Thinkin' I might need some Excedrine.