I can do it. I can't do it.

My mindset swings back and forth between between believing either one of those two sentences.

Of course, when I believe I can do it, I feel buoyant, like the sun is shining and I can feel the wind in my hair, and I'm power walking to some important place.  Every remembrance brings a smile to my face and my present reality feels like a calm, steady launch pad, ready to shoot me into a brilliant new reality that's closer than I think it is.

Naturally, when I believe that I can't do it, I feel like I've just been attacked by the gray.  Hopelessness lingers in every exhalation of air, and every tomorrow seems doomed to be a stagnant repetition of what I've always known.  The emotional mathematics of cost-benefit analysis seem stacked impossibly against me.  Every increasing investment feels like it's destined for an ever decreasing return.

Today, I believe I can do it.  I am halfway done with my last comps list.  I got my teaching schedule for the upcoming semester, and I'm beginning to remember the things that I enjoyed about teaching.  I'm starting to envision what my upcoming semester is going to look like.  It's going to be activity packed; I will have to manage my time well.  I will have to hunker down, and I will have to rely on myself to get done what I need to get done.  But I can taste the satisfaction I'll have when I stick to my guns and I complete things the way I've planned.  It's going to be a time of learning and discovery in preparing for comps, and it will be a time of re-familiarizing myself with the classroom in being a teaching assistant again.

I've had a chance to process a lot of things, and I feel like my best course of action is to continue to believe I did the right thing by moving to start this program two years ago, that I've made right decisions since, and that I will continue on this track until I reach the other side.

I can do it.  I know that I can.  I believe that I can.