The Real Life That I Should Have Been Living All Along.

The OAH conference was this past week nearby. I, of course, have nothing deep to report about it because that's not what I do.

What I do do is go on at length about personal experience and epiphanies.

I spent time with old grad school friends, all of whom are doing well. I talked with my old advisor about my Douglass and women project, and Prof. Famous was impressed by my article. Seriously, for just a brief moment there he appeared to be schmoozing me rather than me schmoozing him. Of course, I realized that, at that point, we had exited a situation in which schmoozing was an option and in which I was kinda sorta, just a little bit, maybe junior colleague in the profession.

Then, some really, amazing, cool events were set into motion and I don't want to say anything specific about them until they actually do start to happen because I might jinx it all -- or look like a fool. In any case, I had a moment right after they began.

As I'm sure that anyone can figure out simply by reading a few posts in this blog, I've been through a lot of abuse. I've sold myself very short. I've loathed myself constantly since about age 10. I've been my own worst enemy. I've had difficulty doing just the simplest, most basic activities of life that come so naturally to other people. Yet, within all of that, there have been moments in which I had these flashes, as if waking from a dream, that I am, in that second, living my real life. That, in that second, I have actually found the life that I was always supposed to be living. I had one of those moments right as I realized that these really, amazing, cool events were grinding into motion.

I also realized that I really really really wanted this to happen. Most of my life, I have been afraid to want things, or to want them too much because, in the magical thinking under which I operated, wanting something meant that you were likely not going to get it. In fact, since magic governed this thinking, wanting something pretty much guaranteed that you weren't going to get it. To want anything, especially to want badly, meant living life in a state of heightened disappointment. Life itself was disappointment, so why invite more by wanting more?

That is one of the rules to selling yourself short: don't want, so don't pursue, so don't be disappointed. Just wallow in misery and self-pity, hating the world, and looking forward to the day that you will mercifully die.

Pathetic. Yet, that was one of those beliefs, much like the abusive bargain of love, according to which my life operated without me really being aware of the process.

After the really amazing, cool events began to move, I started to realize just how much I desperately wanted these events to happen. I looked straight at it. A few weeks ago, they could have started in another way, but that attempt was frustrated. I was hurt, but I realized that I was going to go after this thing one way or another. I wasn't going to get it that way, but I might get it in a different way. Now, the different way might materialize; and I find myself thinking that, even if this doesn't happen this way, then it will happen in another way or another way or another way. In other words, I told myself, "want this thing! Want it badly and go after it with your whole being! Don't let even yourself get in your own damn way!"

That thought, that I could let myself want something really badly, gave me courage rather than the overwhelming terror of disappointment. The terror says, "don't invest yourself too much." The courage says, "you cannot live with yourself if you don't invest yourself too much."

I will, of course, gush or wail as the events progress.

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As I look over the above post, I realize that I still am afraid to want because I haven't named the thing. If I name it, I will jinx it, which is stupid and fearful.

So here is the thing:
A pretty big academic press took a look at my proposal and wants to go through the process of offering a contract based on that alone. On the proposal! Of course, this involves readers, and responses, and publisher meetings and painful revisions of the proposal and so forth, which is the reason that I characterized this "thing" as a process set in motion.

The editor told me that this is a "no brainer" for a contract, the boss said that this was a "no brainer" for a contract, that they really want to work on it anyway because it sounds like fun, and that a contract will help me get funding (and I'm thinking will help me get out of the non-contract-required, online, summer school teaching without looking like a whiny, non-teamplaying baby). The editor even suggested different places to get funding.

This is no big deal, and the funding piece is perfectly obvious to other people, but I sold myself so short that I actually thought that my application for funding would be viewed as an insult to the funders. Yeah, I hated myself that much.

Anyway, I shriek with joy like an overly-excited teenager at the prospect of all of this. This is my real life that I should have been living all along.

Oh, and I am so excited by the prospect of a contract that I forgot to set the whole story up by telling about the fire on the train, and the nasty concierge who gave me maliciously wrong directions to an ATM machine to get cash because the cabs wouldn't take credit cards and I don't carry cash, and how I screamed and yelled the f-word (so loudly that people covered their children's ears -- no joke) about a thousand times between the moment that the train started billowing smoke and the time I finally stepped into the cab -- all of which took place on my way to the interview with the editor. Now, I've spoiled the story.

Meanwhile, back to jumping for joy like a meth-fueled cheerleader.

Then, this vista of grading that goes on forever, which is the crappy part of my real life that I should have been living all along.