Reflections on Murakami and, You Guessed It, Grad School

Darlings,

I mentioned a while ago that there are many activities that draw me away from my responsibilities as a graduate student.  While I've occasionally managed to resist some (apparently, since I now have 309 unlistened-to podcasts), I've made some inroads with other (hopefully constructive?) distractions.  Specifically: given my epic-length commute to externship, I have finally commenced reading Murakami's "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle".

Obviously this blog is primarily devoted to grad school and movies, but I recently read a passage in this book that struck me with particular force.  While it may not initially seem related to the primary topics considered here, in a somewhat circuitous way, I believe it is.  And so, I want to share it. 

In this passage, the main character describes his aspirations for his marriage when it began.  While the book isn't exactly an uplifting story of relationship success, the narrator's ambitions for his marriage are nevertheless boldly romantic:

In that new world of ours, we were trying to get hold of new selves that were better suited to who we were deep down.  We believed we could live in a way that was more perfectly suited to who we were.

As you perhaps noticed, the start of the school year has been a little rough for me.  My head sometimes spins in the midst of uncertainty, and late-August/early-September is really good for that when you're in grad school (apparently).  Lots of big elements in my professional/academic life took their time settling into place, and now that they have, my life is much (much) more full than it used to be.  It's a little scary, even though it's also exciting.

To be succinct, I was a bit of a basket case for a few weeks there.

In so many ways, Boyfriend was the glue holding me together.

But to leave it at that would make it sound more simple than it is.  It's not just that I would lose my mind with anxiety, and then he would patch me up (though that definitely happened a few times).  It's also that, while holding my hand through this tempest that is my life now, he is also a beacon, leading me toward the human I want to be. 

It's so easy to lose track of longer-term life goals when you're staring down the twin barrels of thesis and dissertation.  With all the deadlines and hurdles looming in the future, it's easy to get such stress-induced myopia that looking even six months ahead is incomprehensible.  But Boyfriend helps me see the distant but nevertheless shining light at the end of the grad school tunnel, and helps me remember that my own growth as a person can't be put on hold for five years just because I want to get my PhD.

How does he do that, you may ask?  One of the (many) things I liked about Boyfriend right away is that he is immensely kind, gracious, and patient with others.  Even in times of stress, he just doesn't let that pollute how he treats people.  Even when school turns me into a shrieking banshee, he is calm, loving, and helpful.  It's very striking, and it's something I deeply admire... largely because I just can't really do that sometimes.  When I'm any combination of tired, hungry, stressed, and anxious, which I have been a lot more than usual lately, I get--to use a polite term--snippy.  I am not fun to be around.  I carry my little furious stress cloud everywhere with me, including home.  And sometimes--I promise not all the time, but sometimes--I let it take over my otherwise at least moderately humane temperament.

This is where the Boyfriend-as-beacon thing comes in, and the Murakami quote.  Being in our home and in our relationship helps me every day to work toward being a calmer, kinder, more patient human regardless of whatever else is happening in my life at the time, just by being around the good example Boyfriend sets.  Because even if everything else feels like chaos, I still have the home I want and the relationship I want, and they make a good and happy life an attainable reality and not just some pipe dream.

Only half true!

And this, finally, gets to what I've learned that love, in its best form, is: it's a constant, gentle gravitational force, slowly pulling you toward being your best possible self.  Not just because your partner reminds you, in the kindest way possible, just by being a good person, of the ways in which you could be better, but also because loving that person makes you want to create a better world for them.  It's the most powerful and lasting motivation I've ever had to do anything, which is good, because shaping yourself into something better apparently takes some time.

I definitely still have work to do on staying in my better self when I'm feeling overwhelmed... but I think I'm a little better at that than I was before Boyfriend came along.  He's the best possible reminder that grad school is a distraction from real life, not the other way around.

'Til next time.

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