The other day marked five years since returning to State College for my PhD. I wrote about it HERE and HERE, if you care. For five years, I've worked on my degree- filling my head with academic articles, books, experiences, losses. For the past two though, I've been kinda stalled. I'll come back to this.
I've written here and elsewhere that Penn State is my happy place, and, if I could not live with Wife and Daughter, I may as well be in my happy place. I dragged Linda (roomie/bestie) with me, and I don't know if she's happy about that. (I think not, really.) In any case, for the past five years, my life has revolved around academia. Eventually, I found a series of jobs, both at Wegmans and, for the past three years, here at the LGBT Center (I mention that a bit HERE.)
Since returning, I've taken a LOT of pictures (2,444 as of this second). It's easy when one has access to a camera on the phone at all times. I didn't have many photos from my undergrad days, and the ones I had were done with borrowed cameras. Most of those were for the fraternity scrapbook, which, like the negatives, are lost. I guess I'm making up for that a bit.
One of the subjects I photograph often are the pathways here. They honeycomb the campus like a spiderweb on LSD. I can't stop thinking about the metaphor they represent. The paths branch, going to different destinations, or just different paths to the same destination. When I was in undergrad, I occasionally would take a longer route than necessary to reach my destination (when I wasn't running late.) I didn't think twice about it, but in truth, each of these choices, conscious or unconscious, changed my life. Had I taken a different way, say back to the fraternity house, who knows who I would've met? What could've happened. Perhaps I would've been hit by a car, or met the love of my life.
And that's the metaphor of the Paths. They represent the different paths a life could take- especially when one is younger, say, college age. Who would I have become had I stayed at Drexel? What if I got that job at National Records and never had to apply to Burger King, where I would meet the people who defined my Penn State experience for good and ill. What if I decided "fuck those guys" when I received the cold reception at the fraternity and found a different group of people to hang with? Who would I be today?
Would I even be alive?
It's a cliche to say that our choices, even the smallest ones, can change and define our lives. Now in my late fifties, so much of my life is set in stone. I can't change my past. I can't change who I am, or what I've done. I have a daughter, and that's forever. while some of the people I've met pass like shadows, others left deep marks and scars on my soul. (What I hadn't gone to the Raven that night in January 2012, and met Lisa?)
Nothing is permanent in life. While I will always have a daughter, the nature of my relationship with her can/will change. Life itself is temporary- a heartbeat in time. Moments pass.
Which brings me back to that whole stalled thing. I've been stuck in the same place in my path for two years. Some of it has been deep depression. Some of it has been fear- the fear of Failure, and yes, of the remote possibility of success. But recently I think I figured out what my major malfunction is: I don't want it to end. I don't want to leave PSU again. Leaving in December '88 (and graduating in May '89), threw me into a very dark place. I would've given ANYTHING to come back and be a student again- to return to that time.
I was obsessed with it. Hell, I even wrote a book about that time, trying to figure out what about that time could've caused such a depression when, really, most of the time I really didn't have a pleasant experience. My brothers were cold to me, my girlfriend cheated, my grades were meh... Why did I want to go back?
But I am back. I am such a different person now, and much older, which makes me outside the 'target audience.' But there's another big anchor...
Here I'm employed. I have a job. I spent so long after the bookstore fired me on the unemployment line, sending hundreds of resumes and hearing nothing. Rejection after rejection. Here I have a job. Yes, it's part time, but on some days I feel like I actually make a difference- my path intersects another person's. That I'm actually worth something, if only for a moment.
My path returned me here. I fought to get my place, and I've managed to continue while others from my cohort... didn't. I'm striving to reach the peak of the academic ladder. I never in my wildest dreams expected my path to lead here. Then again, I never expected my path to take me to transition. I thought/hoped/prayed that my path would end before my thirtieth birthday. And again on my fiftieth.
My road brought me here. And, as before, I'm afraid to leave. I'm afraid of failure. I'm afraid of success. I'm afraid of unemployment again. So much for "rush[ing] in where angels fear to tread" (Alexander Pope, 1709.) So I stare at the ceiling. I walk around campus, following old paths I trod long ago. Again.
Tolkien wrote in Fellowship of the Rings: “It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.”
So true.
Be well.
