Balance and Mental Health

As any of you who read this blog may have noticed, I have been going nuts since even before this term started about how to handle two classes and a full time job. As I've probably stated before, I have continued going nuts through this term-not because I'm not smart enough to deal with either of my classes, but because there isn't enough time to do the work for both of them, while having a huge commute and working full time and trying to keep up with my friends. The keeping up with friends thing is huge, because I would crazy without it.

These people-you people-make it worthwhile to keep breathing and validate my existence in a way that is much more important than my GPA. You install my air conditioner, laugh at my jokes, take my advice on PC cleanup, lend me your dog for a day, recommend good movies and books to me, offer me your textbooks, yell at me when I'm not eating properly, help edit my papers, bring your small children to MA so that they can hang with their Tia Cantabridgienne, answer the phone when I call at 10:30 and say "HELP!", take me out for a drink when I need it drive me to Sugar Mags for my Hollandaise sauce therapy and help me clean my apartment so that I can host parties.

So you help keep me sane. Part of my problem this term was that I realized that I have a lot of work to do, but if I don't see my people-my pack I go nuts. Seeing my people is as important as eating and getting work done at my job. The other side of the equation is that because I have such nice people in my life I owe it to them to be as good a friend as I can (within the restraints of working full time and getting an MBA.) Tonight good friends of mine who are going to be out of town for a while wanted to hang out. I've got a lot of studying to do for an Accounting exam next week (I've fallen behind because I had a paper and a presentation due in my other class and because I hate doing Accounting problem sets.) I was hard at work reading about bond amortization schedules (and finally understanding them) when my friends texted me and said "hey come out." Part of me really wanted to stay at home and study Accounting some more, but what tipped the scales was that I owe my friends some time. It's not just about me-it's about them (you all) too.

Once I framed the argument in terms of things I owed other people my course was clear. Clearly I needed to go out and meet my friends for a few beers. I'm not just joking about this (who wouldn't prefer a few beers with friends to a problem set on bond amortization?) My people keep me sane. As such I need to be good people to them as much as I can as much for my own sanity as for my obligation to them. If they/you want to see me, want your plants watered, your PC looked at, your dog taken care of for a day or two, then I am happy to do what I can to oblige you.

Having my pack has made me a much saner individual than I was previously. People don't scare me as much as they used to (now that I know that there are some people I can interact with, do business with and work with at school I'm less afraid of presenting myself to strangers.) I know that I'm not a total freak who is unworthy of anybody's time and who can't deal with humans. Having a pack and going to school has taught me that I had been judging myself by the wrong criteria (or the wrong set of people's criteria.)

I don't know how to sum this all up except by saying thanks for making me saner. I had been hiding in my cave in Cambridge and minimize my friend exposure because I was scared of what people would require of me in return for being their friend. That was stoopid of me.