We all have something that digs in us, but at least we dig each other

Laura came back from a five-week visit to Texas and I couldn't be more relieved. The first time I saw her after her return, I felt embarrassed because I'd gained a few pounds (even though she commented that she had too), but I realized that even at Starbucks, where at least a contact high is visited upon you, we were pretty calm people and having a normal conversation. Nothing about this is odd, of course, except that despite our dessert-eating, non-gym going, and admittedly heavier appearances, Laura looked good and I think I did too, relatively speaking. Also not odd, but what was odd is that I think for the first time since I've been friends with her, a particular fog had been lifted. A fog named DU, that permeates us so completely that it changes us physically. Laura mentioned that her blood pressure was an all-time low in Texas, and it occurred to me that mine had been lately as well, even in the face of lousy eating and too much caffeine.

How can a place - and one in which we are both achieving something great, something be we wanted - be so soul-sucking? I love school, I love teaching, I love learning, I love intellectual stimulation and challenge, I love order and structure - this list goes on and on. So does Laura, I think. But two days ago, I got an email from the department requesting we fill out forms for the coming school year and I felt my blood vessels contract. By the time several people in our class weighed in on their degree of annoyance (and thus christening a new year of graduate school hell), I was in a full-blown depressive state. As I drove down there yesterday morning for my various errands, the stress began.

It's like Harry Potter's Dementors - when you get near one, the space around you ices over and it feels as though all the happiness has been sucked from the world. Dementor University = DU. I'll be glad to be finished, if it ever happens, but now that I feel aware of their presence, I feel the need to cast a spell against it. Isn't it a Patronus Charm I need? I'm guessing the form my patronus would take is a Pug. She can be pretty fierce when it means protecting the one with the snacks and the warm bed and the walking leash. It occurs to me that the nature of so much of my conversation with Laura and my other DU friends is centered around DU and my metaphoric Patronus Charm is going to be to NOT talk DU with them whenever possible in the future. To make my world safe from the icy chill and bottomless unhappiness that the whole of my experience there has created - it cannot defeat me.