One of my college roommates once brought up a very good point that I've kind of turned into one of my life philosophies. Since 'skipping class' is foremost on a college student's mind, especially those 8 am history or science classes after pulling grueling all night pizza parties, and since Freshman year it was a constant mind battle to decide whether or not to skip class, she said that if you go to sleep the night before with even the slightest urge to skip class, when the alarm clock sounds at 7 am, you won't go to class because that urge to not go is too deeply embedded in your subconscious. However, if you go to bed with motivation to attend that early class, whether it be forced motivation because one more absence and you will be kicked out, or your own personal motivation, then you'll do it.
How many times in my life have I used this as a metaphor? Breastfeeding is a good example. I had already decided before I even really tried that the bottle would be more convenient for me, so I didn't even really try nursing and gave up at the least frustration. Or, I eye something not on sale in a store and somewhere in the back of my mind I decided that I would buy it so I do. And how many projects have I mentally abandonded only never to come back to them?
For the past 4 years, I have been very motivated to study and work my butt off to become a certified teacher. But, that's not my long term goal. My long term goal is to become a university professor. To do that, you need to pass the PhD exam which is twice as hard as the test I finally passed last year. I was supposed to be using my maternity leave to prepare, but it just seems like there is way too much other stuff to do, or maybe that I'd rather be doing, than studying. Etienne reminds me everyday that I will be much more respected as a student teacher if I pass this test, I'll work less to be paid significantly more, and life will be much easier in general from now on if I could only pass the PhD exams. Little does he know, though, that I am in bad faith and that even though he thinks that I am very serious about this exam this year, somewhere along the road I went to sleep with the urge to not study and that I feel that this is heading in a bad direction, like skipping class. I am at a loss of motivation and somewhere want to do what Etienne did and just try it every year until I get it instead of spending intense study sessions. There are years of work ahead of me to even be at the level they ask of you and right now, especially at 9 pm when I am dead tired, I can't even think of how to tie a shoe let alone think along intellectual lines. This mental break scares me. How long will it last and when will I get my brains back?
Every day I get from Etienne "I don't know what you've been doing during your maternity leave, but it sure doesn't look like much" or "You are taking all of your vacation time to relax when you should be taking lots of vacation time before the exam in April to study" or "You aren't doing anything during your maternity leave to study and then you are going to tell me that we can't travel the weekends because you have to study" All of those lines push my buttons but they all are like holding a mirror up to me and making me look at myself in the face and see the truth. I had all of these projects that haven't gotten accomplished but at the same time I feel like I haven't stopped, that I'm on my feet the whole day running from one thing to another and then by the time you run to a thousand things without finishing them, you end up not getting anything done. When I go back to work I probably will not have opened one book, finished one knitting project, the apartment will still be in the mess it was when we stopped working on it before Louise was born, and I will not have taken one nap during the week while the boys are gone (which is kind of the goal of maternity leave!). I will, however, have driven and taken the metro A LOT, cleaned, sterilized and fed lots of bottles to Louise, changed lots of diapers and given lots of baths, made lots of dinners, done a crap load of laundry, and been so tired in the evenings that I just want to crash around 9 pm. And, in all of that, I have spent some time looking at Louise in awe of this little creature. So, is it in my mind that I'm not serious about the test this year, have I made up my mind to 'skip class' the whole year, or will something just click where I'll find motivation? Let's sleep on it.
