Into the Forge

There has been much on my mind in the last several days. I am finishing the term, one that has been complicated by circumstances that have reached an almost surreal level of complication. The results have been harsh on my academics. I am finishing the term, but doing so ignominiously. I have been waiting for financial aid since September (“It’s being processed… Two more weeks…") and have just learned that my paperwork was finally approved. I will be meeting with that office today to beg, plead to get a check cut ASAP as my rent is due; my landlord is under pressure from her bosses to collect or evict. I was only able to pay a partial payment so I have to come up with $1475.00, half of which will come from paychecks. I need the aid office to cut $1000.00 now. MM talked to me shortly after I got the call from my landlady. All I could say was, “life sucks.” She asked why, I told her I’d talk to her about it later.

I feel like I’ve become a fraction of the man that I am.

Meanwhile, the limbo of my license still is causing difficulties. I am not supposed to drive, but will have to take that risk on Thursday and possibly today and Tuesday (how to get gas and parking money?). More anxiety, more stress.

I hate to say that my life has careened off of its tracks and is spinning out of control. Looking at work that has to be done for school, I may have to cancel subbing gigs this week.

This feels like the anvil. I need to get past the pounding that will occur this week and hopefully I will find myself forged, annealed, and formed anew. But the hammer can shatter as well as form.

It will be a make-me or break-me week. No dramatics or histrionics here, just the truth.

Day by day… just go day by day.

---

Writing to MM later in the day I had news. It is not all that I wanted, but I will take what I can get. Help is help. I sent MM this email around 5:15 in the evening, following a meeting with the aid office and reviewing the info on the webpage at school:

As they say, I have good news and bad news... The good news is that they have FINALLY approved my grants (loans are still in process). The bad news is that the loans are still being processed. The amount that they will release is substantially less than needed, but will address the current hemorrhage that I am experiencing. It is not a cure, it is more a tourniquet. Still, best be thankful for small miracles. On to stage two of the battle. Fun.

There is one thing that stands clear on my horizon, I am loved by a woman that I care deeply and passionately about. I am holding that thought and it is a non-toxic life preserver in this storm. Ah, to be loved by you...

That is the best of all news. And with that I am indeed a fortunate man.
- p

I am fortunate. I have a woman that loves me. I have friends that care about me. I have my 'blogging community that sends words of support (Thanks to Stacey and to Jeni) and thoughts of light and peace. I think that when it is all said and done that I shall need to take a weekend retreat to sit by the ocean and consider what has happened and how life has been since it occured. Not out of the woods yet, but one helluva lot closer than I was earlier.

-tDF