The end of the school begs for some reflection, especially if one is as prone to reminiscing as much as I am.  This marks two years of what is hopefully a three-year degree.  Now I have to get used to saying “I’m a third year,” and fielding more inquiries about my manuscript and about–gulp–my post-MFA plans (the first question is less anxiety-inducing than the second, in case you couldn’t already tell).

I have to call myself out on something I’ve been doing the past two years, something that I have no doubt I will still be guilty of doing in my third year: counting down and looking towards Life After the MFA, forgetting that these three years are indeed part of the great confusing jumble that is My Life.  (Thinking about the post-MFA life has not included practical plans, and has been lust more than anything, hence my anxiety when people I consider more “adult” than I, ask).  When I decided to apply to grad school, and then made the leap, I was in search of a writing community.

And I found it.  I am, in fact, living the dream I had in Summer/Fall 2007, fresh out of undergrad, and confused with what I was doing in my life.  I forget that a lot.

I am part of a writing community.  It’s in the feeling I get when I get my hands on another installment of a classmate’s work that fascinates me.  When, on my semester hiatus from workshop, people said to me that they looked forward to being in workshop with me again and reading more of my writing.  Community is in the potlucks I’ve attended, in the MFA student reading series–both as an audience member and as a reader–and the thrill of knowing that people are there for me.  It’s even in the countless car rides I’ve mooched, and at the long wooden tables in the department hallway.

This isn’t to say that everything is as I’ve hoped and dreamed.  And it’s hard dealing with the fact that chasing this dream may have wrecked some things that were going really well for me in my pre-MFA life, to know that what I expected to return to once I got my degree may not be there in reality anymore.  There’s a line in Mary Gauthier’s sad but beautiful song, “Please,” that nails it: “If you don’t want me baby, I hope I’m strong enough to keep on moving ’round.”

Career-wise, I’m dubious that this degree will help me, especially since I’ve decided that I don’t want to teach.  But I’d like to keep writing in my life, even if it can’t be what pays the bills.  Hopefully doing the little bit of freelancing I’m doing now is a step in the right direction.

While they might not be resume builders, I’ve done some pretty cool things.  I’ve gone off on woodsy writing retreats, attended AWP, met published writers, had published writers reading my work and encouraging me even when it’s not very good.  I even went to a college football game.  Maybe I’ve also done some growing up, but that’s a hard claim to support.

Well, enough retrospection.  Since I won’t be in class again until late summer, I hopefully can devote more time to this blog than I have in the past few months.  And create a Pittsburgh bucket list, and work at scratching stuff off of it.  Maybe I’ll even have interesting things to write about, eh?  Eh?  One can hope, anyway.