The Anomaly of Accomplishment

So here I am heading into the final semester of the MFA program, accomplishment in sight, and wondering: what of it?

Sour and disenchanted and discouraged are all the immediate sensations that arise. My student loan debt will be well over $50,000, nearing $60,000. That's more than the price of my home when purchased 22 years ago.

Flying, boarding, eating, and fueling costs affiliated with a low residency program make up another percentage of that debt apart from the student loans. Twice yearly trips from Florida to California on an income that will not support those costs means that the charge card phenomenon is in motion. Interest rates as high as 22% extended over many years add to the debt-load.

Then there's the toll in human resources - me! The lack of a vacation in over two years when what I need more than anything is a respite. I haven't figured out how to calculate that debt. But I imagine it manifests in the "sour" reaction mentioned - a lack of patience for trivial things and trivial people with their trivial remarks, the lost capacity for graciousness and compassion; forgetting how to empathize with the troubles of others while imagining mine to be megalithic in size. There is the lost sleep, the missed opportunities, the rejected dates, the friends who can't understand the dimensions of time involved in reading and analyzing a book of poetry or conceiving and crafting a poem.

But I haven't arrived at the sorest spot in this MFA anomaly. I'm talking about the future. What do I get with this gold-crusted degree? Common wages for part-time faculty at a community college average about $5,000 a year more than my current salary. And that's without the benefit companions of a full-time position. The Ph D trumps the MFA when eyeing the plum jobs. What remains are the raisins - those "rapid-hire, there-you-are, teach English Comp" positions that are a dime a dozen because there's no competition.

What's a 55-year old woman to do? I'm vested. A state job is the place to go and in this state the education structure is about as valued as an MFA grad.What? Publish a book? Add mine to the pile? I'm inspiration-drained, future-foreclosed
and weary.

Mary Oliver had the right idea all along. Just write.