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Day’s Verse:

“Look at the birds of the air, that they do not so, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? …So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

Matt. 7:26 – 27, 34

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Even despite Christ’s assurance, I feel played for a fool—or perhaps just inexperienced, or maybe too hasty—having turned in the $500 deposit to WPI before finding out that they don’t give any merit-based scholarships to transfer students. The financial aid site led me to believe that, because it said “All applicants for admission are automatically considered for merit scholarships,” that included transfers; but I guess there’s an invisible clause that says “except transfer students” that I somehow missed. Will I be the only student at WPI paying all $29,500/year without any help? It’s hard not to feel cheated even though I made all the decisions myself and concluded that even without any money from WPI it would be worth it. I surely hope so, because in leaving I’m throwing away the $22,000 Clark was willing to pay for the next two years of my education. I feel very down about this.

As a result, I’ve spent the last few days/hours pretending to be a housewife who does such chores as making dinners, washing dishes, scrubbing toilets, folding laundry, making the bed, and vacuuming up other peoples’ messes (as well as twice fixing the finicky vacuum cleaner). It feels like those summers I spent playing at different professions in the back yard with Colleen—though we pretended we were in concentration camps by wearing pillow cases (yes we were young) and playing in the mud. Oddly my strongest memory is of filling a large metal container that once held three different types of popcorn with water, and having it leave a rust-stain on the porch. Somehow ever summer seems sunny and hot in my memory; we left popsicles out on the back porch and they melted into sticky-sweet vibrantly-colored soup. We played in the sandbox with plastic model horses whose colors all rubbed off from the abrasive sand; we gave them little houses, then flooded the whole sandbox with hose-water, making the horses “run” for high ground. Sand forms wonderfully sturdy structures at the perfect wetness.

Summers look and feel very different now; I dread them rather than aching for them, because all I have to look forward to is seeking a job, maybe getting a lousy one, and doing that for two and a half months. If I don’t look for a job, I’ll always hear mom’s voice ringing in my head: “You aren’t getting a job this summer?” –and an echo, “I had to work hard every summer in gas stations to pay for college.” Immediately I ache with guilt, guilt for maybe not even wanting to get a job, for failing to do anything “meaningful” with myself when I half want to quit college and… go somewhere from there, anywhere that isn’t tests and homework and Ian being disappointed with how his lab turns out. Anywhere that isn’t paying outrageous sums and never earning anywhere near that amount, anywhere I don’t have to constantly know I’m failing myself by not finding fantastic internships that will get me a super job some day, anywhere that says it’s OK if I don’t even want to get a job. Is it strange that I find those household chores relaxing? They offer a time to think and sing to myself and be alone working hard, which feels good. Since marriage I have tried to face life like an adult, bravely, making “wise decisions” (another mom-echo there) and not acting too much like a stupid 19 year old…which I am. It’s fighting against my nature, and very difficult so that I wonder if, how, adults ever become adults.

When do people transition from “kid” to “grown up”?

Enough of my random-association self pity. On another note, if you’re serious about keeping track of the news, check this newsmap out. It covers way too much information for one single webpage.

“Being good to somebody is just like being mean to somebody. Risky. You don’t get nothing for it.” – Sula, by Toni Morrison, pgs. 144-45.

– KF –