Feeling Rudderless

After a Year of School

I’ve been feeling a bit lost ever since I completed my first year of graduate school. A year from now, I’ll graduate (God willing) with an MSW (Master of Social Work) degree from CalState LA. I’m excited to tell you how that all went in another post, but first, I want to articulate this feeling of being in the middle of a lake in a sailboat when the wind dies. Even if you’ve never been in that situation, I’m sure you know the feeling. It’s a slow process as the mind notices you’ve lost the thing that was propelling you, and operates for a while on the assumption it will come back any second now. Humor carries this along for a while until you and your pals realize you need to dig out the paddle that’s hopefully still stowed somewhere and row your way back to shore.

It’s a bit like driving around Altadena these days, a practice I’ve returned to after a year of being busy. There is a lot of new construction already going up. Still, it remains a bit of a no man’s land, with countless empty lots, many of them overlooking a barren Altadena, and Pasadena still standing below. These startling views oddly mirror how I’m feeling: loss, with hope in a distant future.

I absolutely love being a student. In one class at the end of the semester, the professor asked each of us what we were most looking forward to, and many of my peers (most of whom are decades younger than I) said they couldn’t wait to graduate. It was surprising to hear so many express impatience with getting through the process, but then again, many of them have been in school most of their lives. I’ve been in school less than a third of my 62 years, so when it was my turn, I said I was enjoying school so much that I wasn’t looking forward to summer or graduation. Sure, all the coursework is stressful, and the program has felt like a full-time job, but I’ve loved every minute. I assume my young peers and friends are impatient to get on with “real life.” But I’m relishing the privilege of reading, learning, arguing, and defending points of view. I love being on campus and hanging out with new friends. It is such a joy to engage in intellectual discussions! And writing papers for people who read them closely and give specific feedback on where your argument shines and where it fails is immensely satisfying.

My last couple of papers were fairly torturous, and I spent the last days of finals hammering them out at home alone. It was seriously anticlimactic to hit submit on the last one with no one around to high-five. Instead of feeling satisfied with the accomplishment, I felt disappointed it was all over. Then my son came home from college, and I started cleaning the house, which had been sorely neglected, and these things helped me start to feel like myself again.

But that’s the big question: Who am I now? I have changed a lot this year. Grown a lot, I should say. I’ve truly broken free of the skin I’d settled into in late middle age.

So I’ve been thinking about this and going to the beach a lot, to sit and stare at the water and try to remember—who am I?

This is a big question for anyone dealing with empty nest syndrome, but I think for someone like me, who was more invested in motherhood than career aspirations, it’s a pretty big one. There’s comfort in my old self—being domestic, hanging out with my grown son who does not need anything from me save a little advice here and there, and returning to my creative life. (I’m planning to write a lot this summer, hopefully rewriting my novel.) But my old life, which includes my old self, seems a little strange now. There’s a disconnect between my new identity as a student/empty nester and my old one as a mom/artist. I have a feeling the trick to enjoying this summer will be integrating the two.

I’ve been meeting up with school friends, which helps. It’s also a good reminder that it’s normal to feel out of sorts after an intense year of school. All of us are feeling this way, and some have it much worse than I do. School was stressful, and many of my peers already had additional stressors that were pushed aside. Now all the complications of money, family, and romantic partnerships come roaring back, and they’re all feeling a little overwhelmed by the demands. This is where being older is an asset. (More on that in the next post.) I have perspective and experience that remind me summer will be fleeting, and the best we can do is try to settle and stabilize our chaotic lives as much as possible until we jump back in in three months.

I spent a full day volunteering this week with some school friends, and it was fun, tiring, and the best medicine possible. Turns out hanging with my friends from school is the paddle I was looking for.

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