Some Days Are Better Than Others

I realize that my upcoming rant only continues to show what little progress I have made in having faith in my own self worth, and allowing other people's opinions of me to affect how I feel about myself, but if I don't let it go out into the universe, I'll lose sleep over it tonight wondering how I can capture/control/change it.  It's interesting that in the classes I am taking that it switches from semester to semester from building me up to tearing me down.  Last semester I had great professors - two of three who were sincerely vested in my success and at least appeared to believe that I had true talent.  The semester previous to that, I had a-holes for professors who called my writing banal and sophomoric.  And again, this semester, I seem to back in the "You suck, I hate your writing" camp.  Writing and Singing. These are the two things that I hold closest to my heart.  I keep them protected, safe for the most part, from damaging words or condescension, because they have always been my outlet, my friend when I'm in need, the two things that I could turn to when my heart was full of inconsolable ache.   The two things that hurt more than anything when I am judged harshly based on my performance with them.

I still have an "A" in the class, but my grades paper to paper keep slipping further and further down the scale, now falling into the "B" range.  I feel like writing for this class, is like trying to clean up a jar of dropped spaghetti sauce-  the harder you try to "fix" it, the messier it gets.  And I seem be on a never ending quest to find the "right" way to do things.  That's the people pleaser in me, I'm sure of it.  

Who knows, maybe other people would say "Whatever- it's just the professor- their writing style and my writing style simply don't meld, and if they don't like it- tough" and just move on.  In the real world, not everyone likes you, so it's ridiculous of me to expect that every class I take, the professor will think I'm the next Faulkner or Hemmingway.  

In my head though, when you hear "You're such a great writer"  "You're a breath of fresh air" "I love your style" etc from professors- you actually start to believe that you have a talent... and then someone comes along, pops your self esteem bubble and says "Think again sister, you're not even qualified to write my take out order".  

It's hard.  

It's been a rough couple of weeks.  Our 9 year old lab, Bozley, has torn his ACL.  We have to keep an eye on him, and make a decision shortly whether or not to have a $3500 surgery on his knee (this, is on top of the already almost $1,000 for medicines, xrays etc to get to the point of finding out its an ACL).  And, I know this sounds selfish, but were supposed to go on vacation in 4 weeks.  And I can't tell you how badly, mentally, I need a vacation.  We specifically planned it for that week because by some divine miracle  Mr. Millie and I both have spring break the same week.

If Bozley has surgery, there's a possibility that we might not be able to have a vacation, because his surgery would occur around the same time.  We would both need to take time off to make sure they he stays immobilized during his re-cooperation period.  Or, we could wait until we come back from vacation, but Mr Vet gave us this wide eyed "you wouldn't do that to your animal now, would you?" look when we asked if we could hold off on the surgery for a month.  

At the moment though, he seems to be doing well enough with the medicines.  He still limps but at least he's putting weight on it- so I'm hoping that we can avoid having to do the surgery.

Aside from that, it just seems like right now, metaphorically speaking, I'm walking into gale force winds, instead of having the wind at my back.  Everything is an uphill struggle.  I'm hoping that one of these days, soon, the clouds will break enough for some sunshine.