restless again

I'm getting to the point in this going-back-to-school thing where I just want to get there and get going already. I want to skip the part where I spend time writing this semester's project, skip the part where I wait on financial aid, skip the part where I buy plane tickets, and just get this show on the road. There are too many worries at this point. What if financial aid falls through? What if I buy the tickets and then can't go? What if I get there and I'm ludicrously underqualified*? What if I get lost and miss something vital? What if I can't figure out what to do with my story? What if the classes that are all online require me to be present at a specific time and our internet messes up again? What if I can't work because I have to school? What if the financial aid reimbursement doesn't include enough to live off? What if what if what if?

But I know that I can get past all that jazz if I can just get there. Once I'm through security, everything will be fine, because that's where I'm supposed to be-- the inner sanctums of airports are where my clearest early memories are, and they feel like home and I feel like myself the way I only do once in a very long while in this boring and frustrating normal life.

See, I have my Plan. And that plan involves not working food or retail. It involves having a much more flexible schedule and a much better income so that the schedule can afford to be flexible. It involves travel-- both for pleasure to see friends and family and for business, going to conferences and expos and conventions. It involves collecting degrees and getting solid jobs in sectors I want to be in-- which would be editing or Library Science / Archiving, or both-- and it means never having to have more to do with this particular service-industry sector than I want to, ever again. And it feels like going to school is a good way to get this going. I'm going mostly because I want to meet people who can help me and because I want to learn things that will help me help myself. I need out before the frustrations eats me up.




* I'm used to being somewhere near the top of the writing classes I've taken without really trying that hard. I don't know why, but structure never seemed to be much of a problem, and all through undergrad I was writing pretty polished stuff that usually didn't require much alteration. But what if grad school is different? I'll be in school with people who are all at the top of their undergrad classes, and what if I'm too rusty, what if I've lost it? It would be mortifying: this is all I've ever really wanted to do, and definitely all that I feel qualified to do.