After the stroke, the first few months were all about making it not matter- going back to everything that made me me, doing the things I used to do and doing them just as well.
But while a few of those things made me happy, many of them did not. I think I knew that before the stroke, which is why, upon coming to college, I changed much of the focus of my life (I continued to be deeply involved in a few things, but they were different, circus rather than politics for example).
Even those changes didn't solve the problem, but they did allow me to put it off for a while. Now, I realize that its still there.
Since the stroke, I've been uninterested, mostly just slogging through with the minimum possible amount of work to make it to graduation. One of the nice things this semester is that I'm actually interested in my classes, and not spending the last 1/2 staring at my watch thinking "hurry up and let me leave".
Today in behavioral Econ we did a thought experiment about discounting and wages where you got hired for about $40,000 a year. On the one hand, that sounds like nothing. Not enough to have a decent standard of living. But that's because I'm used to life in an NYC suburb. Most places, rent on an ok apartment is more like $600 a month than $2000 a month (even if you rent without a room mate), and food is about $350, so $40,000 a year works out to almost $3500 a month- enough to live on, certainly, and have some spending money.
Which gives me hope. It must be possible for me to get a decent job after graduation that will pay me enough to live on so that I can have some time to do what makes me happy: make art, do circus, watch movies, hang out with friends. And then I can figure out the next step towards a life where I love my work, have a support system, and enought money/time for leasure activities after that.
Which reminds me, oh god I have to talk to the CDO and start sending out my resume. now I'm depressed again. Graduation is both exciting and terrifying.
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