Doing Discontent

There's something uncanny about my life right now. I'm not one to claim some fundamental change in my person, but I don't feel like me.

Or maybe for the first time I am like me.

I mentioned how social I've been in a previous blog. I've gone out of my way to introduce myself, to spark conversations....hell, I've involved myself with other new students who might not be making the transition (as if this were my turf, and my responsibility to bring them into the fold).

I walked into the lab for my TA yesterday and started talking to my students. I don't like talking to new people, and I usually don't feel like I have a lot of common ground with the average person (or the average college student). But I conversed, with fluidity and without effort. I cracked jokes, I learned names, and by the time the class got going, I started teaching like I've never taught. Like I never thought myself capable.

At Western, I began convincing myself that teaching wasn't for me; that the classroom setting and a room of strangers would never play to my strengths. I could dialogue with students after class, I could tutor just fine...but an authority in front of dilettante masses? An "educator"? No, that just would not do.

But when I walked into this class, I took a few figurative steps backwards from WKU. I forgot those disheartening experiences that need not be repeated. I have no control of grades or exams. I have no formal responsibility to teach anyone. I lead a discussion. To be honest, I don't really given a shit how it goes. I spent about 20 minutes of prep, and then I just winged it. I settled down and did my thing.

Winged it? Me? Before a class? But I am anal and prepared.

Or am I spontaneous and open?

It worked.

When I step into what sociologists call the backstage (supposedly the place where we let our hair down and make little effort to impress), I am delighted by conversations that divert like a newborn stream. My humor comes in bursts of random silliness, and I like that about me. Impulse is what's good about my writing, it's what's good about my friendships, and so it's probably what's good about me. Of course, it's based in a thoughtful, reflective mindset and a social setting that structures that spontaneity.

Er....sorry.

That's sort of how this whole Columbia experience has gone so far. I've always drawn this clear distinction between my self around my familiars and my self around strangers. As a sociologist, I know that both are just a matter of performance. I am not bound to any one course of action, to be standoffish with John Doe and warm with my friends. But I do have a routine, different tendencies triggered by my surroundings. They're not static; they change as I change.

I change as the world around me changes, but I also change as I make change.

So I am making change and making friends and making myself part of my new home.

And I've not felt homesick. "Oh, how relieving for you," my old companions will say. But I maintain an eternal veil of pessimism that goes from relieving to disappointed. From the beginning, this place has made me disappointed that I'm not disappointed (starting when I visited campus in April, expecting to hate it, only to find it offered exactly what I needed).

The thing is, what I had at home was good. Really good. Many people dream about the kind of community and relationships we've brought to life with Mikey's House. I gain a positive view of myself because I know how I am seen by my friends. Because not only are they important to me, but I am essential to them. And because I never let myself be happy; because I always want something else for myself, I left that thing in Kentucky and expected to hate myself for leaving.

And I have time to hate myself for sure, but I don't think I will. Because I've brought it with me this time. At UK, I left Mikey's House across the state, where I could visit and renew my dependence. But since I'm now too far away to refresh those bonds, I've taken them with me and implemented them elsewhere.

I miss everyone dearly, and I certainly could weep about home. The friendships I've sparked here are still shallow, still professional. That's the problem with grad school. If you make friends in your department, the context for those relationships is your work. It's quite hard to move from sociologist friend to friend in the sociology department. I struggled with that at UK, but I had Mikey's to fill my demand for unquestioned intimacy. But I'm starting off in a good place here, a better place, and a more mature state of mind.

I prepared myself to quit if I'm miserable. But I am afraid that I will never be homesick and that I will grow to love this place and the people I meet here, and worst case scenario, that I will be homesick if I return to Kentucky. That's a scary thought.

Not realistic though. I'm just not sure how to deal with being content. I have to throw out questions that bring me tension....even if it's a half-hearted attempt.

I love everyone back home, and I wish you were here with me. When I think about each of you, I want to be with you and share my life with you. I am fortunate in my many loves. Undeservedly so -- I think I should have more.

-Mike