I love this song. I love the sentiment. Today I didn't walk, rain clouds and thunder and lightening came in. Worked on the manuscript a bit and realize I am very burned out on it, but I got some help with it. Will get it in format around the 21st or 22nd and send it to the press on the 23rd or so before I leave for Texas. Can't wait to see my family. I am for the first time in my life feeling a sense of peace, but I have a long ways to go. I have a lot of work to do in terms of self-esteem. Sometimes people dismiss people like myself who have experienced trauma and may be shy or etc. (People who don't meet shallow societal standards of what is successful.) But I think through healing one gains a sense of her power. And art transcends such things in the end. It's about hustling on the page, not being too self-assured. A certain amount of doubt, and a willingness to live in uncertainty surely seem a part of this. But mostly I am at peace in enjoying moments. They are brief in the end. It's all we have. I am most certainly going to work on confidence, but moreso I desire freedom. I don't want to be in bondage to societal expectations which are essentially shallow and well, over-Americanized in terms of workaholism etc. This puts me on the outside. I can't believe all the academics running around claiming they are aesthetically on the outside. If you have a good teaching job, you are most certainly on the inside. I suppose if you are out in the boondocks, you might argue with me, but I still say you met some kind of expectation about what is wanted in academia. I tend to think that this is a someone who is often overly confident and misses nuances about his/her own frailty in face of a universe of indifference. But this is only true some of the time. And what does it mean to be on the outside? Is it really such a great thing? I don't know, but I do know society has these expectations that one work and many work themselves to death trying to meet these unreal standards. I may also have a disability which requires treatment. That's not to say I won't get better, but for now I am a penultimate outsider as I am receiving state disability. I am seeking to be an insider some day possibly, but for now I am on the outside, most definitely.

Having new time to write now, makes me okay with this, and I think starting a new project, one not fraught with the emotionally charged subjects I wrote the second manuscript on will be good for me.