What a strange day and sleepless night. I am tired from thinking about possibilities and pondering realities.

I really had convinced myself about grad school, I made such a good case. I really sold it. It made sense and it was exciting and fun to have a challenge.

But today I faced the music and looked at the true costs and even with a good scholarship (that has in no way been promised) I cannot justify the cost.

I could make other arguments to back up my sudden choice last night to relinquish my spot and forget that dream, I could say all sorts of things. But, if the classes were cheaper, I would have gone.

I was looking forward to talking with others. I was looking forward to a good relationship with a mentor, which was honestly a bit optimistic with my track record with teachers, but I was hopeful.

I was looking forward to the challenge too, but mostly the company of other women. I miss that. I think I was picturing my old college days, though.

I was indulging in thinking about the future and having cheerful plans. I liked the idea of hanging with young people who still dream, despite the dark political climate.

I wanted in, I wanted to be able to teach. I wanted to have the life I always thought I would have. And releasing that dream is painful at the moment.

Can I achieve my dream without outside support? I can try. I can keep trying.

It was only a dream, and an expensive one. So much of our savings would have disappeared into a hungry university that has its very own financial problems and existential anxieties. An institution, it must be said, that would have banned me from entering classrooms five years ago.

I sold a good story though. It sounded like I was just the right person to write the story. I can try writing it on my own, but we shall see.

The clincher in the story about my grandmother with the PhD in Home Economics, and a full life as a teacher and globe trotting diplomat, was that I was named after her and then she happened to write me a little note when I quit graduate school in English Literature, warning me not to leave myself behind in my marriage.

Which I promptly proceeded to do, having a baby soon after and forever working on my writing in the shadows and the downtime afterwards. But I was happy, and I did write, and in the end, that is what I did with my life.

Would my life have changed with a MA? Would I have changed? If I had conquered my fears and self doubt would I have been a stronger woman less prone to insecurities? I believe I would have been, and that would have been good for the marriage as it is possible we could have had less stress and more money from my improved ability to secure better work.

It’s possible. But that is not how it went and I don’t want to spend time in regret. What I have now is more important that what I could have had. I can’t possibly know what could have happened in our lives.

I concentrated on what I wanted, which was to have babies. And I loved that more than anything. It was my driving force, it always had been.

What’s nice to imagine is that your life went exactly as it was meant to and everything worked out for the best. This is a good place to land, and also excellent for the practice of everyday gratitude.

So, the first part of the evening was dedicated to my serious consideration of putting aside graduate school. Then came the burning ceremony.

I wasn’t expecting the burning ceremony, but having done it now, I’ve got to say, it was very satisfying. I think I will do more of it. It is a great way to dispose of detritus that I would otherwise leave to my children.

I have never burned any of my journals before but all of a sudden I found I had ripped out some soft cottony pages from my nice new journal and fed them to the woodstove.

I watched the leaves of pages burn bright orange and then followed the shifting, twisting ashes as they moved across the bottom of the woodstove as if on feet. It was cathartic. There must be something to the benefits of burning stuff. I felt it.

Annoying pages of my scribbles, practically illegible. Up in smoke.

Small minded, repetitive meanderings. I ripped the pages out of the journal that my husband had kindly bought me to support my graduate school dream.

The ripping of the pages reminded me of a childhood ripping. Though it wasn’t me who did the ripping. I was only a child, maybe 12 when I found pages ripped out of my journal.

I had written about a terrible fight my parents had. It was the first fight I ever saw, and the last one. It was the end of the marriage and I happened to be the only child there.

When I found the soft white teeth of the missing pages I knew that my dad had done it. Sometimes he liked to read in my room, he told me, because it was peaceful. I knew that he didn’t want me to remember the fight so clearly.

He had come home drunk and accused my mom of having an affair (that she was having). He was angry, he was drunk and he called her names. When he came across me sitting in the living room by myself he dropped to his knees and cried and asked for forgiveness. I had never seen him angry, or drunk angry, and I had never seen him cry. I was frozen in shock.

This came into my mind because of the sight of the remaining pages, the rough teeth of the scarred pages. The reason I ripped out the pages in my journal was less dramatic. I was tired of my whining about my emotions and my sometimes wrought relations with my husband.

We have a good marriage but these last years have been tough. There is no lack of love but sometimes terrible miscommunication. Both people need to step back and realize that they are over reacting but oh no, they argue, say terrible things and go silent.

One of the underlying themes of my proposed thesis for my grad work was to investigate the female mind. The choices she makes. Her dreams and hopes. What choices did my grandmother, my mother, or myself make around marriage? We all wanted a loving relationship as well as an independent life. Every decision we made had consequences.

My grandmother had an exciting career and married my grandfather late in life. Was she mostly happy? I don’t know. I can only imagine what it was like to retire from her interesting career and live with my handsome, difficult grandfather in a quiet suburb.

My mom left my father, obviously, and then had a life on her own, cultivating a younger boyfriend who lasted until her death. Was she happy? Yes, although she told me that when she saw her old friends in their companionable old marriages she wondered if she had done the right thing by breaking away.

And then there’s me. I know I choose Joe because I wanted to be sure of my love, to be confident of my man, to be proud of his strength and intelligence. I know I choose well. I see our life together as a great adventure, our children as three times blessings, and our present time now as a new chapter.

The adjustment to the empty nest has been tough but we are getting to new ground. Leaving behind baseless bitterness, building new manners and new paths. A marriage is not static.

So I ripped out the pages of my complaining because I was tired of my mithering. I wanted to let it go. I can feel when my mind goes negative and I am sick of it.

What I am saying is, I want to be better than that. I want to appreciate what I have.

But, my ultimate aim has always been: I want all of it.

I want an excellent relationship with my man AND I want to be a vocal, active feminist AND I want to be the best mother AND I want to have useful, good work AND I want to write something beautiful that connects with other people.

And I get to decide, because it is my life. So, I keep at it.