John looked at me. "It's almost over."

"I don't care that it's almost over!" I said belligerently. "I have to get motivated now. This is it. There isn't any other degree, you know, this is my last chance to do well. I don't want to fall apart at the last minute. Only I can't get myself to care, and I've got to."

He sat down on the stairs and said, "Of course it's the only degree. That was the point."

"But I secretly despise this degree. I wanted a Bachelor's. In my head an A.A. is a degree for losers who can't manage the whole thing. An Associate's degree is all the hard work with none of the glory or the respect or the interesting coursework of the four year degree." I slumped back in my chair. "The problem is I can't go to night school forever chasing after a degree that means nothing in terms of a career, and I know I can't. Realistically it's no good. But the worst part is I've recently realized even if someone came along and gave me several thousand dollars and said quit working and go to school full time I wouldn't want to. I hate being in school. Christ, how can people stand it?"

He shrugged. "They like academia. They like being students. That's why it takes them fifteen years to get their Master's."

"Exactly. But I hate it. I get sick of being a student. It depresses me to realize that all this time I thought I wanted to eventually be an English Lit. student but I don't. I don't care about ninety percent of the reading list. I just want to study a couple of things in detail, I don't want to read a lot of books that are supposed to be great literature. I thought it would be worth dealing with the uninteresting courses in order to get to the good stuff and I've only just realized there is very little good stuff ahead of me if I were to pursue the degree."

John said, "I thought you let go of the B.A. idea."

I gesticulated wildly, nearly knocking over my glass of water. "No. Yes. I am trying. But part of me can't accept that this is the end. I'm so afraid it's a pointless exercise. No one will ever be impressed that I have this stupid degree. I mean, sure, everyone who knows what hard work it was and what I sacrificed to get it is cheering me on, but it won't ever matter to a stranger and I hate that. For twenty-two years I have been fixated on one thing and I'm not getting it, I'll never get it, because I don't want to give up everything else just to have it. And yet I resent the compromise!" Jasper gave me a soulful look and hid under the table. The cats left the room.

There's more to this desperate feeling of beating my wings against the cage than just disappointment that I've changed my mind about a degree. Lynn Peril didn't set out to upset me when she wrote her book Pink Think, it's often quite light and funny (I especially like the Baked Noodle Ring versus Communism), but I can't quite handle the memories it brings back right now. I'm profoundly rattled from revisiting the unhappiness and pain of my younger years when everyone was telling me what girls ought to be like and I was failing miserably to either desire those goals or come close to meeting them. There's a resonance; I failed once to get my B.A., and here I am again not getting it. It doesn't matter that I chose an alternative. I sense an echo of failure, and it's bothering me a lot. I articulated it clearly to John at one point: everyone I went to high school with was supposed to go on to get their full degree. It's what my crowd did. High expectations, fierce competition for grades, getting into a popular sorority or fraternity, graduating from some fancy college, then grad school or fabulous jobs. Basically, my socioeconomic background dictated what I should achieve and anything less wasn't good enough. It didn't come from my parents, it came from my milieu. I couldn't keep up then and I can't keep up now, and I don't want to care that I'm not meeting standards that are wholly unrealistic for me.

I do care. I live in a black and white world. You can't believe how hard it is for me to see shades of grey when it comes to myself. This is the struggle for grey. Add to the blend of frustration and painful memories a soupçon of dread over the election results and you have a recipe for jangled nerves.

So I've put the book away for a while, and decided to read something else. I called my friend Teresa at Tor Books on Friday and begged her to send me some good science fiction because I desperately need to read something completely unrelated to my life at the moment that isn't history, mystery, or non-fiction. Bless her, she's shipping me a box of reading material and made lots of comforting noises which cheered me up.

I feel like I've been through the wringer lately. This chipping away at my conviction that I'm doing the best thing for me is no good. I must concentrate on finishing the semester and not give in to thinking about what it all means. One foot in front of the other. One prelude at a time. Read my history books, teach myself the Star Wars theme when I'm bored with Bach, rejoice in my new shoes, jeans, black pants, and sweater. Go to a party on the 23rd with Journalcon friends. Plan out the Tiki theme for my piano recital (Lynn's one of the guests and has promised to sign copies of her book for me -- guess what you're getting for Christmas!). See the new Harry Potter movie, swoon in a completely inappropriate way over Daniel Radcliffe who is getting better looking every year. As soon as he's 18 he's going to be my official movie crush. Wait impatiently for new Lord of the Rings movie with current official movie crush Billy Boyd; it opens the day after my last final and I'm taking the day off.

I can do this. I can. I will stop analyzing what it all means and just do it. It's a degree. That's the important thing. And you know, I may just go ahead and get that tattoo when it's all over, a little one somewhere, as a mark of one more rite of passage. No matter how I feel now, when it's done I'm going to love being able to say I have a college degree.

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