#ppp?

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This graduate school decision making process is making me realize a lot of things.  I finally needed to just blog about it to get it posted somewhere so I can stop rehearsing the same arguments to everyone who will listen (and listen and listen):

1) It's making me bump up against the limitations of embodiment.  The worst part of rejections is that moment when an entire vision of a potential future, an entire alternate reality, an entire dimension of existence collapses and disappears with the words "we regret to inform you…" And now that I am choosing between two fucking amazing potential places (one where I'm at and one near where I used to be) it should feel exciting and joyous, right? But I can't look past the fact that once I make a decision, the other potential life collapses into nothingness.  It becomes something I will never have and something that I might one day regret giving up.  I'm realizing that I hate the limitations of space and time and living in a human body.  I hope that one day far from now, in death, we're liberated from  time and space and embodiment and we can live all the lives we imagine for ourselves at one time.  I hope that I can have a happy radical life in the bay and a life full of dancing, karaoke, and radical brunch in Austin, and an Ivy League education at Brown, and a life where I live at home with my family because I miss them. I want all of these lives.  But I only get one.  We only get one.

2)  That brings me to this second point.  Why is this graduate school decision bumping up against my mortality in these weird ways? The fact is, whatever I choose, I'm signing away the remainder of my twenties to it.  I don't get another youth, another prime to live.  I get this one.  There are so many benchmarks (albeit mostly heteronormative myths put forth by capitalism) that a younger version of myself hoped to achieve in the time that I will be pursuing my PhD.  Will that be possible?  And what if I put myself in an untenable social situation?  What if choosing graduate school at all is not meant for this part of my life? But every time someone suggests I don't go I really argue with them so it's clearly something I want, right?

3)  How necessary is the place in which I will live and settle down?  What I mean is- as a queer person of color I don't have the luxury of finding community everywhere in the United States like white straight people or even white queers do.  And once I get my PhD, I'm at the mercy of the job market and I certainly won't find community teaching theatre in like bumble-nowhere South Dakota or somewhere random like that.  Is this even a career I can have given this requirement of radical locale?  And is this even a requirement I can have given this economy? Given my passion for teaching and scholarship?  Then there's the fact that I've spent my whole life surrounded by straight white folks in various contexts and, often, in those contexts, I've been really really happy.  But now that I've lived here in Austin- could I be happy in that context again?

4) There's the question of the money and all that it means.  Brown is giving me so much money guaranteed over 5 years.  I've never had money.  My daddy didn't bring me up to turn down this kind of deal. I want a one bedroom apartment, I want a dog, I want to travel, I want to be able to go to conferences all over the place.  UT is giving me kind words, emotional support, and loans.  This one is pretty cut and dry, but am I selling out my radical QPOC positionally in Austin for Brown's Ivy League buy in?  It feels like that kind of.  But also Brown could give me so many resources to help me pursue things even farther than I would be able to here.

I just want to be great at everything I do.  I want to be known.  I don't know what the best path to take is.  I want to be successful and happy.  And I know that successful is a vexed word but what I mean is- I want to make a difference, a substantial difference with my life before I give up on embodiment and go live all the lives I didn't get to live this time.  And I want to be happy while doing it.  I want to have community.  I want to live near my family. I want to fall in love many times and eventually find a partner.  All of these things are bound up in this decision and it's taking up so much mental and emotional space right now for me. AHHHHH!!!!

If anyone has any advice please offer!  If anyone knows anything about the qpoc/queer/activist/radical/poetry/performance scene in Providence, RI please let me know!  If anyone has gone to Brown, please talk to me! If anyone has ever dropped out of graduate school to become a full time community organizer somewhere cool let me know! If anyone has any relevant opinions please reply or put something in my ask!

Thanks for reading this whole thing.