realizations

I can access the blogspot website from my computer again! I don't know what happened but if this continues, hopefully I'll be able to post more often.

I officially realized yesterday that I have more to do each day than there are hours in the day available for. It's not a comforting thought. It's been like this all semester and, I can only suspect, will continue for the rest of the semester and eventually get worse. I just want to graduate! But I've learned a lot about myself in this painful process along the way. For one thing, I have definitely realized that I often use my academics to help me feel successful in ways where I feel like I fail as a pianist and vice versa. So in a sense, I spread myself too thin and exhaust myself in the process when really I just need to pick one of these to focus on, pour myself into it, and let the other be less important... a secondary interest, if you will. And then I need to not let my sense of self-worth be defined by my shortcomings in either of these areas. Because the cracks will get filled in along the way and I've got an entire lifetime in which to do that.

I've also learned that I hate making decisions, especially when I'm stressed or tired, since I often feel totally inadequate to make decent judgment calls when I'm exhausted like I am right now. Knowledge is power. So I'm not going to force myself to make decisions until its absolutely necessary. It's a lucky day when it only takes me a minute or two to decide what to wear in the morning. So why should I make a hasty decision about grad school or anything else? I shouldn't. Mom always says, "If you don't know what to do, then just wait." So that's what I'm doing.

The most recent thing I've realized about myself is this: turns out I really need boundaries and structure in my life. I hate them. I wish that I didn't need them so badly. But I feel a lot safer, goal-oriented, and motivated to get work done when I have some clear-cut deadlines to meet and boundaries in different areas like scheduling and relationships. Weird how you start realizing all this stuff when your life goes crazy.

Still waiting on something magical to happen... like if spring could come, that would be fantastic.