It Girl. Rag Doll. (Too Many Notes.)

I am soft spoken, small-shouldered, and pale, and people rarely believe me when I tell them I'm all right. Most of my reputation for secrecy comes from a desire not to give reason or excuse for the opinion that I'm not all right, not when my physical self somehow gives the impression of delicacy. It's nice that people want to protect me, but there's a point at which it becomes bothersome; I am perpetually second-guessed as it is.

The truth is, I do need to take a term off. I love the school, love my flat and flatmates, have made friends and adjusted to London, and am excited about coming back - but I can't be here now. Grad school - any school - is about a process of breaking down and rebuilding. It's too much; in the last six months, I've had a death in the family, gotten divorced, started a new relationship, moved across an ocean to a place where I knew almost no one, been vaguely threatened with deportation, had the man I love temporarily exiled, reconciled with my sister after a decade-long dispute, had the only house that has been a constant my whole life put on the market, had my high school demolished, lost the family of my ex-inlaws, probably lost my aunt, witnessed four friends' impending divorces, watched other friends get evicted, seen Val in and out of the hospital, seen Reflection's Edge down and not known whether it would go back up, watched three friends sink into clinical depression...and really, that's not even half of it.

I've been beating myself up for not being able to just roll with it, but I'm coming to the point where I have to accept that such a thing is impossible. Some things take time. I can't interrupt a transformative process with another transformative process any more than I can build a house while the foundation is still wet - however much faster it might seem to do both at once.