It’s easy to be discouraged about hopes and aspirations. Following academic twitter is both a blessing and a curse, for you get to see first hand how people are fucked over in multiple ways. But then you also see awesome comradery (comraderie?) and people geeking out over geeky things, and it reminds you why you want to become an expert.

I keep having internal tug-a-wars over whether I want to pursue higher ed. I know who I am as a person – I am weak, I struggle with finding and holding to a routine, I have mental illness that doesn’t take a lot to trigger. I know that higher ed is demanding and hard and requires an almost herculean effort.

I also know what I want, what I really really want. (So tell me what you want, what you really really want.) I want to be an expert in linguistics. I want to have that knowledge, because _I_ want to have that knowledge. And I know that I can utilize that knowledge in a way that could be beneficial to other people. But mostly it’s because it’s something I – me, myself and I – want. Is there really any other reason needed to pursue a thing beyond that strong internal desire?

While I keep getting distracted and allow myself to slip back into lazy mode, I keep coming back to This: Linguistics. I have had other careers in mind during my lifetime – astronomer, Japanese translator, writer – but this one is all encompassing. I still want to be a writer and plan to work on that as I can. And, since I need to learn another language anyway, my Japanese will come to a point of fluency that will fulfill part of that other yearning. But I feel, in my heart of hearts, linguistics is what will keep me afloat during those tough times.

I’m super lucky too because my husband is just as geeked out about linguistics as I am. We love to talk about it, theorize and babble and make jokes. It fuels us, and his interest in it will help me when I am feeling the pressure.

And so, next week, hubs is wrapping up his school year and summer vacation will start. I will spend a few weeks dumping as much time as I can into self study. I will find a way to save $200 to take the GRE. And I will get a job to save the money needed to go to LSA Summer 2019 conference/camp.

I have been taking a winding road for a while, but it’s starting to straighten out a bit. The focus is becoming clearer, nearing tangibility.