re-weighing and re-evaluating

a couple of evenings ago, when it was time to go home and most of my co-workers had already started trickling out of the building, i stopped over at my boss' office to say a couple of things.

 

namely, i told him that i'd had a change in heart.  i told him that i was not sure i had made the right decision.  i told him that, even after thinking things through and feeling that i had originally given him a right, rational decision, i had felt devastated after i had stated my decision aloud to him.  i said everything in a halting way; it's hard for me to be that honest about certain matters when i know or feel i'm letting someone down.

 

dimples says i give way too much importance to other people's feelings, even to the point of exaggeration.  perhaps that's true . . . either way, though, my boss took the news rather well.  he agreed to give me more time.  he asked whether i felt strongly either way, and i said no – i feel the attraction of both choices pulling at me rather equally, but for different reasons.  he said he could understand my plight.  he said the father in him would tell me to go ahead and go to school, but from a professional stand-point, he'd hate to see me go.

 

basically, that's my dilemma, too: i'm stuck and vacillating between the personal and the professional.  for personal reasons, i want to go, start a new life in a brand new place, and be on my own.  i want to be an academic, learn for the sake of learning, be a pioneer in my chosen field, and not have to feel the pains of cold winter weather seeping down my neck.

 

but i also want to stay here, for professional reasons.  i want to make steady, good money.  i want to go on a cruise to mexico with my mom next month.  i want to be able to continue to go shopping and have no fear about being able to pay my bills and for my rent.  i don't want to leave my dog behind.  i want to be here for my mom and my fam.  i want to continue being able to eat excellent dim sum and viet foods at any restaurant i want.  i want to see what professional rewards await me if i were to stick it out here for a little while longer.

 

it makes total and utter complete sense to stay here.

 

for money reasons and for family reasons.

 

it just makes sense.

 

so why did i feel so devastated before, after the first time i told my boss that i think i wanted to stay here?

 

there is just something internal, i guess, that knows what it wants, and no number of rational reasons can deter or extinguish it.  it knows what it wants.  and no amount of money and no kind of luxurious indulgence is enough to eradicate it or make you forget.

 

maybe the life of a literary academic is not going to pan out.  maybe i'll find that, having worked in the real world the past few years, i need to go back to doing something practical as my livelihood, not something purely theoretical or abstract.  it is a possibility that i have tossed about and bandied in my mind – that once there, i will find that academia is not for me as much as i have thought or that i won't even like living in that other city and state.

 

but shouldn't i at least give it a chance first?

 

this job certainly is one in a million, too, though.  i have kind of been treated like "the Chosen One."  i've managed to develop a fairly good reputation, everyone knows my name, and i keep getting fawned over.  even people who haven't seen my work yet, per se, thinks i'm so stellar and such a super-star.

 

seriously, a girl's head could swell and explode from all this fawning!

 

my eyes are still full of stars when i engage with certain higher-ups.  i have a lot of respect for what they do, who they are, and how passionate they are about not only their own work but also the overall goals of this department.  i give state workers in general a lot of flack, but for certain state workers in particular, i have nothing but admiration and respect.  they really care about the direction and integrity of the department.

 

as for dimples, it used to be the case that i thought i would totally stay here just for her.  but i'm finding that a recent comment by c.w. is right.  regardless of how i feel or felt for her, the feelings are not mutual.  dimples tends to tell me one thing – which is that she can't be in a relationship and that she cannot offer me anything, which, rationally, i understand and know to be true – and yet her actions contradict her words. 

 

even to this day, the physical attraction between us is unbearably heightened.  we only need to share a certain look between us, and it's over for me – i start craving her.  i see on her face, in the intensity of her gaze, that she feels the same way. 

 

but i can't deal with this crap.  i must face facts.  i cannot always be the one going out of my way for her while she passively accepts my efforts without making any such effort herself.  it's not right, it's not fair, and it leaves me perpetually hanging.

i have to stop caring so much. 

but i don't know how to stop.

:-T