In another part of the world

I had midterm essay meetings with lots of my students and everyone looked so tired. Even my doorman noticed it. I looked in the mirror during a break between conferences yesterday and my eyes were all puffy, my bangs are getting too long, no more summer tan.

When I was driving to Toronto that song "Once in a Lifetime" came on my iPod at the perfect moment in Western New York, driving past some fields and hills and farms, all sunny and pretty with the leaves changing and the still-green grass. How many people have written diary entries and blog entries and short stories and yearbook pages about this is not my beautiful life, behind the wheel of a large automobile, you ask yourself: how did I get here? Well, it's a pretty good song.

Ever since I came back home on Monday there's been a dog barking somewhere in my building. I figure it must be a new dog, a dog who isn't used to getting left home alone. Pretty soon someone will complain and his owners will realize that their dog has a whole life of his own when they're not home -- they hardly even know him.

Last month when I got my thesis advisor assignment I started thinking, how did I get here? What am I doing? Where is this going? It's different to ask those questions when you know what you're doing for another couple years than it is to ask it when you're on that countdown to who-knows-what.

I remember back when I moved out to California after the big break-up I was so lost: walking a mile to the BART every morning to go from Berkeley to SFCC, spending all my money on jeans, writing mean notes to my roommate, making out with the randomest selection of guys (DMV, college bars, the mall, summer school), eating only carrot sticks and pizza and crying all the time. But then I got a job, and a better apartment across from Trader Joe's, and I learned to drive, and I would drive from Oakland up to my suburban job listening to "No More Drama" (mostly because I couldn't stand listening to any music besides top 40, anything that reminded me of New York and my old life) on my Discman connected to my tape player. And I was like, Mary J is so right: it's up to us to choose whether we win or lose. Maybe I liked the stress 'cause I was young and restless but that I was long ago and I don't wanna cry no more. No more Zoe/mom drama, no more his-friends-or-my-friends drama.

So I got a better job and even a car with a CD player, and a few years went by and then I was applying to graduate school, and it was a big relief to everybody, especially my parents who were not sure how to describe me at dinner parties anymore, but that didn't bother me because I was doing it for myself, you know? I was into it. I wanted to stay in California, or move to Toronto -- it seemed like an inspiring place to go, even though I had only been there a little before, especially given the state of the world in late 2004. I didn't really want to go back to New York.

But in between applying and getting in, my grandmother died and then my mom got sick. I remember sitting there when my mom had just had her surgery, fucked up on morphine and cursing me out because I was trying to keep her from pulling out her I.V., and I totally hated her for how much she looked like my grandmother, how much her voice sounded like my grandmother's voice. And of course, I hated myself too for pushing her away for a whole decade, for living far away for the past four years, and I didn't blame her at all a couple months later when I heard her say to her friend on the phone, right in front of me, that her naturopath thought the disease was caused by me, by the stress of caring about me and fighting with me for so many years. Guess what? All those times you wished your mother would die back when you were 14? Experts agree, you could get your wish! Except that luckily, my best efforts were foiled by medical professionals at Mt. Sinai.

So, I said yes to Columbia, and I tried not to think about the reasons why. Of course, that's all hindsight. At the time, I just didn't think about it -- it didn't feel like trying. And it's so easy to do something when you know exactly what's expected of you -- that doesn't really feel like trying either. But now I have to start having thesis meetings, and figuring out what I'm going to do for funding next year, and figuring out what I'm going to do after that. And exactly ten days after I found out who my thesis advisor is going to be, I found out that my mother is sick again, and she's probably (maybe? I guess I have to be careful what I say) going to die. She actually didn't tell me -- she told my sisters, at the dinner table, while I was sitting there having a conversation with my dad about baseball (I guess she likes the convenience of overhearing). And it turns out she's known since April. Thanks, Karen!

And, I know this is crazy, but the first thing I remember thinking is, "why did I bother?" Why did I come back here? Was it just to save my mom? (Did I really think this would be enough?) To make myself feel less guilty? Or did I have some purer reason, something about my hopes for my own future, happy and separate like I used to feel? Did I think I'd find something good in New York in spite of my reservations? And, have I found it? I guess the answer is, it all depends on what I do next. I need to get that feeling back that I had when I knew what I wanted instead of what everyone else wants. I need to get back to that feeling you get when there's only one bus an hour to work so you can't be late, back to the way I used to imagine myself finishing something I care about making and having other people care about it too, back to the discman and the car and the pizza.

Yeah, I just need to figure out what I need to do next. But then here's another question: Is it okay for me to leave again?