This is the life: bohemia

My job, as I mentioned briefly yesterday, allows me to work from home for the next week or two, and let me tell you, with as crappy as the weather is, I'm totally grateful. Without being too specific, I will tell you that I spend a lot of time on the internet, looking up information from various college websites. I never realised how many colleges there are. And I never considered applying to more than one when I decided I wanted to do my PhD. I always figured I'd do it at Madison or not at all, so since I was already checking out college websites I hopped over to UWM to see if they've rejected my abysmal application yet. Aaaand--

Nothing. Still in transit. Okay. Meanwhile, I'm pulling out my hair here, frustrated with temping, the weather, the lack of usefulness in general and my dislike of Chicago in particular, so I've decided to leave. Pull up stakes and head out. Farewell and godspeed. I know I wouldn't be staying in Chicago anyway, whether it's Madison in September or somewhere else tomorrow, so I've decided to cut and run. She said petulantly.

I know that I'm not very good with the long-term plans, and I tend to get antsy about, oh, anything requiring me to focus for more than five minutes together. I guess I just haven't found anything I'm passionate enough about to hang in here for. Yet. And I'm single, no kids, no dogs and only my student loans dragging me down--so now might be a very good time to be traveling about for awhile. I am making plans to head down to Camp Victor in Mississippi for a month or two and whither then, I cannot say. By that time I'll have heard back from Madison and will either be settling happily into an apartment in Mad-town or making huge, dramatic, sobby plans to move back to London and marry for a visa. Or something. I'll be back. You haven't seen the last of me.

I feel like I'm apologising for leaving. I don't mean to be. I don't want to feel like Chicago is driving me out, like I'm saying "oh yeah? well screw you, I quit!" because that's not how I see it at all. I feel like "Okay. This is not working. Next!" I'd rather not look back on Chicago at all. (and anyone who has had to listen to my rants about London will be relieved, I'm sure) I hear the anxious well-wishers asking if this is going to contribute tothe furthering of any sort of career, and I wonder the same thing. There's only so long one can go sopping up life experiences before you have to turn around and write. My resume is so piecemeal right now it hardly matters if I take two months off, and the money sitch is somewhat relaxed right now.

The question still remains: how does one begin to live? To make that transition from college to "real life?" I feel like this past year (past five months especially) I have been suspended in a not-really-living life. Were I working at a job I liked with coworkers I got along with, I might have gone out with them occasionally, swapped stories of friends back home and dates on the weekends. Instead I see a new set of coworkers every week, sometimes more often. Were I working in a theatre, I'd be surrounded by people who shared my common interest, heartily debating whether or not Shakespeare is still relevant. I should have taken those sailing lessons last summer--at least I could have embarassed myself the first time someone told me to tack to port and I tried to tell them it used to be "larboard" two hundred years ago while the boat tips over. But I did not...this isolation is of my own making. The becalmed state of my life is all of my own doing, and all because I do not feel like I belong here. Stubbornness brought me here, kept me here, and now I'm leaving--probably stubbornness again. Will I find a "life" down the road? Who can say? But at least I'll be looking instead of sitting around waiting.