a simple man

My application is complete for my first graduate school! I am so excited about the future of my education. Ever since I was in high school, I’ve thought about attending higher education, first as an undergrad, and then as a grad student. Now I am close to being another step further along the journey. Acceptance is being considered by the admissions committee, but I foresee no complications in being admitted.

I am going to take a few general courses to begin, because honestly going back to school scares me. I have been out of the scholastic game since graduating in 2010, and then I had completed tours at two colleges in five years culminating in a Bachelor of Arts degree. At the moment of graduation, my mental health was declining and I was exhausted. Now, thirteen years later, I feel ready to again tackle some classes.

I am pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in writing, the terminal degree for creative writing. I would like to focus on poetry and memoir writing, or literary non-fiction. Lofty dreams, as these are traditionally the hardest programs to get into. I need a portfolio of my best writing, and to find a good program that won’t break the bank, or that is not far away. Most MFA programs depend on being able to be on-site somewhere for at least a few weeks out of each semester to workshop and learn from a professional. The rest of the time, from what I understand, is spent reading and writing and re-writing and re-writing.

But that is later. Right now I need to make sure I can perform at a graduate level. Like I said, I am experiencing some intense imposter syndrome and real fear. What if I am not good enough? What if I can’t get back into the groove? What if I no longer have the magic touch when it comes to wordsmithing? What if I, quite simply, no longer belong in school? I am having to take some deep breaths and move forward.

For a long time, I have had a strategy when it comes to jobs and other endeavors: go forward until someone or something stops me. It has the advantage of being simple, and easy to remember, and as such, easy to implement. It is amazing to me how often that has worked, too. My most recent job, as a member of a Human Resources team, was like that. I had never done HR, had little idea what that meant, and was feeling very unsure of myself when I applied. But I applied, I interviewed, and was hired. After I found my footing, I realized that I had a knack for HR and was good at my job. Eventually, I was laid off through no fault of my own, and my former boss just told me she wished I was still working with her. I do, too, but had it not been for the layoff, I would never have considered quitting for grad school. Now I have been given this opportunity.

I will go forward, indeed, I have already: I’ve applied, submitted my transcripts, paid the fee, acquired references, written a letter of intent, and at this point, there is nothing more to do but wait. The admissions committee will meet and make their decision, and that will dictate what I do next. I will either register for classes, or seek out another grad school to apply to. I feel strongly that before I begin my MFA I need at least a few classes under my belt to get going. I am aware of the fact that applying to schools is somewhat of a lottery, so it won’t be until I have been consistently rejected that I will assume that this is something I should not pursue. I am not there yet, so forward it is!

Another big hurdle that has me concerned is the financial aspect of it all. I am unemployed, and grad school isn’t cheap. I am not ready to take out loans (still paying off undergrad loans) but I have some savings to at least get me started. I will be researching scholarships, applying for financial aid, and doing what I can. Right now I am also uncertain about the prospect of being able to work and study, so I am not seeking out a full time job. Might try to get something part time, at least through this first experimental semester, but traditionally it has been difficult for me to find the kind of job I look for.

Sigh.

I overwhelm easily at the myriad aspects to chasing a higher degree. But, I have good support from my wife, my family, and those friends that know about my desires. That support is bolstering me through these early days. In the back of my mind, I begin to think that I can do this, that the questions and doubts are nothing but smoke screens and shadows. I’ll take all the help I can get throughout this entire process (if you would like to contribute towards my school fund, I am open to discussing options), but I also know that if I am to succeed in my dreams, and graduate with that MFA, I will need self-confidence and the ambition to work hard.

Maybe that is what scares me the most: that I am the only one who can pull this off. I’ve never been very self-confident, or self-reliant. When pursuing my undergraduate degree, I didn’t stop long enough to think about what I was doing. I raced from class to class, reading and writing long into the night and early morning (sometimes). But I didn’t do much self-reflection. Thirteen years gives you time for self-reflection, and now, with experience and maturity, I am much more aware of what I am about to do. And it scares me.

Scared or not, I’ve started, and I’m not about to back out, not yet, not by a long shot. One step, as the cliche goes, at a time. Forward. I can do this.

I have launched my second blog! You can find it at philmartin.blog. My writing there will be centered on religion, social issues, and my intersection with both. If those sorts of topics interest you, perhaps go over there and give me a follow. Otherwise, feel free to stay here and read about pop-culture, baseball, poetry, and whatever else I choose to write about.

Thanks for reading and have a great day!

My lava lamp slowly blumphs away, against the wall beneath the television. One dog lays snoring a few feet away, another lays atop a footstool and sighs, looking at me, and then looking away.

The night crawls towards midnight, but before it gets there, I wanted to gather a few thoughts and toss them into the void of cyberspace. This week has been both full of activity, and also full of rest. My wife and I returned on Sunday from a long, two-week trip, driving from Texas to Pennsylvania to North Carolina and back to Texas. We drove a total of 3,681 miles.

The trip was ostensibly a work trip for my wife, she being one who earns a living by raising support in the form of monetary donations from individuals, churches, and other organizations. She works in distance education for a non-profit university, but her salary is comprised of these donations. It is necessary, time to time, to visit those who send in donations. I accompanied her because since we got married in 2019, and there was/is a pandemic in the intervening years, I had yet to meet some of these people.

The time exhausted both of us, not just in the car driving and traveling, but in always being “on” in presentations in front of churches an in one-on-one interactions, or in small groups. We are very glad to be back home, in the quiet of our upstairs studio, with our dogs (who did not accompany us on the trip).

The beginning of the week was spent just re-acclimating back to life at home, and tending to the yard which had grown into a jungle while we were gone. I got the oil changed in the car and the tires rotated (a good bit of maintenance, considering the miles put on the car in just two weeks). We’ve also been looking after one of our dogs who will undergo surgery early next week. He needed a blood draw and a check-up prior to being put under anesthesia. I also spent a day with my mother and nieces seeing the bluebonnet fields, the ubiquitous spring flower of Texas. Today was laundry day, among other chores.

*deep breath*

While Friday, and the week, draws to a close I reflect back. It has been a good three weeks in total. The trip was paid for through one-time donations from churches and individuals, and others may begin, increase, or merely continue regular support. This most recent few days of performing tasks was productive. Going into the weekend, I feel ready to rest, relax, and spend more time with family. I don’t want to accomplish anything other than fun and frivolity. I believe I’ve earned a little of both.

This is also a breath before a plunge into work. No, I haven’t regained gainful employment. Rather, the opposite: I am going to try being gainfully unemployed for the time being. I am going to pursue full-time writing for the summer (at least). I have many topics and ideas of things to write about, and to that end I have registered a new domain through WordPress where I will be setting up another blog to handle most of that writing. It isn’t directly related to this blog’s topics and interests, so it felt natural to give it a new space in which to flourish (hopefully). More on that later.

I also want to pursue higher education. Formally, I have only acquired a bachelor’s degree (of Arts in English) and would like to add to that a Master of Fine Arts in Writing or a related field. I need to do serious research into schools, financial aid, and other things. I’ve been out of the education game for a while and need to reacclimatize my mind and body to being studious. To this end I think I want to register for two fall semester classes at my wife’s university (where as spouse I receive a 33% discount already) just to see if I can still do the whole scholastic Thing.

Work lies before me. I seriously want to devote about 6 hours a day towards writing, and a few hours each week towards getting geared up for the fall semester. I don’t want to do this halfway. I am serious about taking my loss of job as an opportunity to try something different. I can’t say “new” because I’ve been writing since I was a kid, and I’ve been in school since I was six, but to a new and different degree, perhaps.

As Friday ends I realize that while I have been busy recently, a whole new kind of busy is about to begin, one mostly unknown to me, and more than a little scary. I don’t want to fail, I don’t want to put the financial burden of my family squarely on my wife, and I don’t know how to alleviate that and be a writer/student at the same time. But one step at a time, as I’ve always done. First, a good night’s rest, then the weekend, then: Monday.

*breathe*

I can do this.

I sit typing while listening to clothes tumble in the dryer. I look out my brother-in-law’s North Carolina window at a tall pine tree and the dappled light shining through needles far above. I miss this part of the United States: the east coast. I grew up not far from here, in Virginia, about 20 minutes from the shores of the Atlantic Ocean.

I miss the pine trees, the smell of the ocean, and the climate. Most of all, I miss my childhood home and the wonderful times spent there. Oh, there was plenty of angst, bad times, and drudgery, but most of that is lost to memory. I usually only remember the good times, the specialness, and my family.

While driving south from Pennsylvania, where I have been the past week and a half supporting my wife’s work, it took all my effort to keep right on the highway towards my destination in Charlotte, North Carolina, and not go left to my home city of Norfolk, Virginia. I had just visited my cousin in Richmond, and remembered well the drive south from there, highway lined with tall evergreens and green grass. While I drove, memories flooded back to me in a rush, like the cars passing in the left lane.

My sister was born a bit before we moved to my favorite home on Sheppard Avenue, 30 years ago today. They tell me that when she was announced, still ensconced within my mother, that five-year-old me jumped on my bicycle and rode away upset. I remember wanting a little brother at the time, and not being happy that I was, in fact, going to receive a little sister, but I don’t remember anything about an angry bike ride. (Truth be told, I wanted a little brother so I could beat up on him and I knew I wouldn’t be able to do that to a sister. I was not always treated well by my older brother, and thought turn about would be fair play. What can I say? I was five. I’ve matured since then.)

Anyway, a few months later, just after I turned six, my beautiful sister was born on the 29th of March. I remember being at school when my mother went into labor, and being called in to an office with my brothers and told that my mom had given birth. There is a photograph of my dad in the hospital holding newborn sister and the three of us crowding around to catch a look at her. I don’t know if the school memory is real, but I suppose it could be. I’d have to check with my brothers and see if either of them remembers.

Someone else lives in the home we were in then, and in the home on Sheppard. It is no longer “mine” though I still dream of purchasing it and moving in someday. I have no idea what renovations or upgrades have been made since then, but in the ever present realm of memory, it still looks as it did. I would probably be disappointed if they had cut down any trees or uprooted any bushes, or changed a room or something, so it may be best if that house stays in memory. I don’t know.

My sister and I grew up in that home on Sheppard. For ten or so years, we lived, played, loved, fought (don’t be fooled, we fought a lot), made up, and matured (I told you I did!) in that home. Like I said, bad memories and good memories. Then my dad took us to Orlando, Florida, and then the island nation of Papua New Guinea (but that is another long story). I did most of my growing up in Norfolk, and there my sister started her life journey.

Another memory invades my recollections, of hanging out on the Gettysburg battlefield while I was in college. My parents and sister had come to visit, and we went out to the fields and forests of that old war ground to spend the day. (I think we would have been around twenty-two and sixteen?) I remember, too, longer ago, my mother taking us on field trips to Fredericksburg, Yorktown, Williamsburg, Jamestown, and many other historical places in Virginia, as it is a state littered with the memories of dead soldiers. That day in central Pennsylvania, a chill wind blew through the trees and shade, though the sun was warm as we walked from place to monument and old fortification.

Today we live over a thousand miles away from Norfolk in Texas, near Dallas, but we are fortunate to be close, both geographically and emotionally. I love my sister dearly, and now her two daughters, the eldest of which is the same age I was when I found out my sister was on her way. They are precious souls that I cannot wait to see in a few days when my time here is completed.

I wonder what the next thirty years will bring to me, and my forever little sister. What joys, sorrows, hard times, and celebrations will we face together? I obviously have no idea, though I can imagine some: birthdays, holidays, the growing up of her children, and our adulthoods spent pursing careers, hobbies, and togetherness. I can’t wait for all of it, even the darker times, because I know she will be there with me, as she has been for thirty years past, through long plane rides, foreign lands, university, sadness, and happiness. Thanks, sis, for being there for me.

I don’t want to wake up in metal capsule, in a cold, dark warehouse fifty years outside my time, only to suddenly age and become an old man. While that’s the basic plot of the 90’s film Forever Young, I wish for a different kind of perpetual youth: the kind that never grows up.

I am starting my thirty-sixth journey around the sun, hosted by the earth (my deepest gratitude, you are a wonderful home!), and as I begin this newest trip, my social media is filling up with good wishes. However, I wanted to express some wishes for myself. The first and foremost is to never grow up.

Life can make me older, and experience can make more more mature, but I never wish to lose the joy and mirth that comes with being a kid. I see my youngest nieces, Rae and Cassia, and the vigor with which Cassia in particular attacks life. Rae does as well, but with less tenacity it seems. She is somewhat more reserved about things, but Cassia can’t spell reserved (or, well, anything, she is only 3). My point is, I want to be more like them going forward.

I still play with action figures; I am reminded how I used to stage endless battles with my GI Joes with my childhood friend Luke. Nowadays it is more customizing and photography, but I yet like to collect and display my figures. I just finished painting an action figure last night, and can’t wait to reassemble its disparate parts and see what the entire paint job looks like all together. I also am into building dioramas in which to pose the figures, and have much fun with that.

I am not into LEGO as much anymore, a surprising turn of events if one considered my later childhood and teenage years, in which the building blocks were ubiquitous for me. But I still enjoy constructing the odd set, and have a few I don’t wish to part with, that I enjoy seeing displayed in my bedroom.

Every time I am in Walmart, or Target, I inevitably head for the toy isle, looking over the Hot Wheels, Hasbro, and LEGO. I don’t often buy anything, expect for the drain cleaner or toilet paper or whatnot that I am actually there for, but I wish and dream and covet just as I did when I was a child. I never want to lose that excitement for the endless possibilities in play.

I want play and playthings to be around me the rest of my life. I want to be a fun and good uncle to my nieces and nephews. I want to always be odd and rambunctious and unpredictable in the delight I bring with me for the world and life. Even as a tottering, old man, I want a twinkle in my eye and a smile on my lips, and laughter in my mouth. If I ever become crotchety and misanthropic, something will have gone terribly wrong inside. I hope to never walk that path.

Beyond that, I want to be wise and understanding. I want to be able to judge things rightly, and to be fair and even in my dealings with other people. I would like to be full of love, not just for the kids around me and my family, but to all I meet, those like and un-like myself. The world is full of interesting and unique and different individuals and I would hope I have the capacity to love them all. Some, I know, are intent on being unloveable and hateful, but even then I would wish to bear no malice towards them, only hope for their healing and a better life.

I work as much as I can on acquiring these goals, and renew myself to them once more as I turn thirty-six, a still young age at that. I do the math, and if the world is kind, I will have more time than has already passed to yet be alive, and I welcome every second and year. I have come a long ways from the kid playing in the grass with action figures, or on the living room rug with LEGO, or on the sandlot with a baseball, and I think of all the growth I have achieved in that time. I hope I can make as much progress in another thirty-six years.

So here’s to me, and my many happy returns, and to remaining forever young, yet perpetually wise and full of love. I truly wish that to be said of me all my days on this planet, and after I am mouldering in my grave. For now, the sun is shining, it is a bright and glorious start to March the 12th, and I can’t wait to celebrate with my family, and my littlest nieces. Rock on!