Tuesday night: November 5
Brief note: to self. Time to take myself in hand. I have been staggering about lugubrious, black, bleak, sick. Now to build into myself, to give myself backbone, however much I fail. If I get through this year, no matter how badly, it will be the biggest victory I’ve ever done. All my spoiled little girl selves cry to escape before my bad-teaching, ignorant somnolence is made drearily public among my old teachers and my new students. If I fainted, or paralysed myself, or pleaded gibberingly to Mr. Hill that I couldn’t carry on, I’d probably escape all right: but how to face myself, to live after that? To write or be intelligent as a woman? It would be a worse trauma than this, although escape looks very sweet & plausible. This way, I can build up a dull, angry resentment & feel I’m going through with it & will deserve my freedom in June, for sacrificing a year of my life. 7 more months.
First of all? Keep quiet with Ted about worries. With him around, I am disastrously tempted to complain, to share fears and miseries. Misery loves company. But my fears are only magnified when reflected by him. So Mr. Fisher called tonight & is coming to sit in on my class Friday. Instead of complaining to Ted, feeling my tension grow, echoed in him, I am keeping quiet about it. I will make my test of self-control this week being quiet about it till its over. Ted’s knowing can’t help me in my responsibility. I’ve got to face it & prepare for it myself. My first day of Lawrence. Wednesday & Thursday to prepare for it. Keep rested. That’s the main thing. Make up a couple of little lectures. Get class prepared.
The main thing is to get on top of this preparation. To figure how to start teaching them about style. For the first lesson, make up general lectures about Form of papers, organization, read from papers. Don’t get exasperated. A calm front: start at home. Even with Ted I must learn to be very calm & happy: to let him have his time & not be selfish & spoil it. Maturity begins here, however bad I am. I must prepare lectures, however poor.
After this week, enjoy reading: make up ways to present symbol, style. Lectures for confidence. Don’t look at year: from now till tomorrow. From then till the next day. Then next week. Then next week. Then, Thanksgiving, and a real chance at rehabilitation & work. I’ll trudge on till then.
I want to enjoy this as much as I can. Which means I must work for preparation & not procrastinate in fear, and teach in sick fear. Confidence. It begins at home. In keeping Ted from knowing the worst. Then I won’t know it myself. I’ll be living with it. Rest, calm. Nothing will help if I get nervous & miserable & worry. It salves guilt to feel “at least I’m sick & miserable”, that’s payment for being a bad teacher. No. I’ll try to brazen it out. To keep my outside contacts. Letters to Krook, Wendy. My being a bad teacher this year will only prove I can earn board & keep and not quit. I quit my waitress job; I wanted to quit my first babysitting job. I will not quit on this. I need somebody to slap me. It won’t be Mr. Hill. It will be myself. Don’t be spoiled, in dry accents. I contracted for this. I’ll work to do my best, however bad, and not lose face.
Each week I’ll make up some small new outpost to conquer: first I couldn’t sleep without pills, now I can. First I couldn’t see girls in my office without exhaustion, now I can. I can also write a letter, bake a good pie. Victories, however small. Now I’m going to be more ambitious: this week I won’t share my worry about visiting with Ted, Nor my worries in general. I’ll shut up and work. Confiding in him is my worst weakness. I feel he deserves to bear my pain and share it, but I must shoulder my aloneness somehow, and begin to be nobler. To work within my immediate job, demands & problems, and pretend that Ted is outside them, not drag him in at every moment. This is a beginning. To bear my Visitor alone.