I'm Addicted

    I think I'm addicted to learning. I love trying new foods, cooking new things. I love hearing how someone else thinks. I seeing things from a different perspective. I love the tingle my brain gets when I finally catch on to something brilliant someone is saying. And not to be smooshy, but I love learning new ways to love my husband. I love listening to new music. I could go on. I don't have any brilliant insights or points about that, I guess. I have been loving that about Duke. Being exposed to crazy students, brilliant students, professors who are brilliant but chill and reading a shit ton of things inevitably means you learn something I guess. (I'm listening to my husband play and sing right now...ah, glass of wine, cream cheese stuffed baked chicken, playful dogs...tonight is euphoric).
   Not to change the subject too abruptly, but the last few weeks have actually been a little tough for me. In the odd moments I wonder, what the hell am I doing here? Is it worth thousands of dollars for me to be in this class? How are the financial decisions I'm making now going to affect our future plans? What about kids? What about leaving the country? What about ... What if I get my Masters and realize I don't want to teach? Does it matter that I don't always feel "spiritual" or moved by what I'm learning??? Is it bad that sometimes I'm just objectively interested? I'm curious about how people piece together what they believe. What if I don't have enough of the "Jesus relationship" to support a lifelong career in theology? What if at some point I just don't care and don't want to talk about all the heady spiritual things anymore?
   I have no idea how it came up, but the other night as we were drifting off to sleep Tim said, "You know, even if you don't do a career with this, just that fact that you have "mastered" something is remarkable." Apparently, it was quite a relief because I burst into tears. Geez louise, I have a fantastic husband. (Seriously, moving across the country, supporting us by working 50+ hours/week, and going a bazillion dollars into debt and he says, it's just impressive that you're doing this. Wow.)
   SO I married up for sure, but I guess the point I'm getting at is sometimes I think we just need permission to change our minds, to change period. Maybe I won't be a teaching theologian, maybe I'll teach drama or P.E. or maybe I'll just be a mom. It's just nice not to be pressured. It's nice to be at Duke because I like it and I like what I'm learning and not because I have to do something afterward. I think it released me from pressuring myself into not enjoying being here. Or pressuring myself into being in a profession I don't want to be in. Not saying that I don't want to teach, but what if? You get the idea.
   More stream of consciousness? okay. Today in class we talked about the history of sexuality and how much of how we interpret sexuality is really a product of our period of history (i.e. the term "heterosexual" did not exist until the 1900s). Before that sexuality was not a way that people "defined" themselves. I suppose it's way too much to sum up in a paragraph, but it was a way I had never thought about how we identify ourselves. Anywhoo... if you're curious send me an email.
   Sometimes I think some of the things we expend so much effort on really won't matter in the long run. I think we're just supposed to love each other.


 PS I looked up what the top 10 songs of my birth year were... and I totally kicked 1985's ass (Tim's birth year). I got Cindy Lauper "Time after Time," Madonna "Like a Virgin" WHAM! "Careless Whisper" U2 "In the name of love," Dan Hartman "I can Dream About You" oh yeah. Good year. :)