Dispatch: Academia & the Criminally Insane

I'm not suggesting the topics in the headline are related -- although they easily could be under many circumstances. More a highlight of what's to come.

First, a quickie from the Home for the Criminally Insane. I was working last night, and around 2 a.m. found a magazine on the dining table: Today's Christian Woman. On first glance, I cringed. Then I read all the teasers on the cover and cringed a little more. "Getting God into Your Workout" is what made me start thumbing through it.

My review: Curve is much better. I mean, from one niche genre to another, I'd rather see women represented by dynamic, unconventional lesbians than Bible-thumping gals with hopelessly dated big hair. But also, I prefer the relationship advice columns in the lesbian magazine. And not just because it's sex-positive; it's that even in a world where big gnarly fisted bull dykes and BDSM are all a happy part of the scene, the advice doesn't have a creepy tilt toward paying appropriate homage to the man.

To cleanse my psyche, I popped in a DVD of "Kill Bill, Vol. 1," which I watched for the first time despite concerns about my autonomic nervous system being rather aroused lately. Turned out to be a good choice. The scene where one of the assassins dresses up as a nurse -- a nurse with a white patch over her eye that's embossed with a small red cross -- made me start laughing harder than I have laughed in a month.

I realized just how little I've been laughing lately. But ... grief will do that to you. C'est la vie.

Now on to the bit about academia.

I've gotten a few e-mails from XGF over the past couple weeks talking about the progress she's made toward entering a PhD program. As some of my Fair Readers may recall, XGF's desire to move to the East Coast -- most likely -- in pursuit of a doctorate in medical sociology was a factor in our decision to split.

After we broke up, she decided to accelerate her application process and try joining a program this coming fall, versus next year, when I would have completed my own graduate program. She had to take a heavy load of undergrad courses to polish off the degree she's been chipping away at for the past seven years while working full time in a professional job with significant responsibilities and a lot of international travel.

I've been amazed at the progress. I was further surprised when she managed to get all her applications out the door on time.

Although many friends and family members have expressed skepticism in the past couple of years, particularly with XGF's desire to be accepted into a few elite schools in the field, I never doubted she would make a top-notch candidate and an excellent academic.

So I'm feeling a touch vindicated here. XGF has already been officially accepted into three PhD programs, and she awaits word on several others. So far, she's in a pretty sweet spot. One of her top schools, Rutgers, has offered her a five-year fellowship, paying for tuition and insurance, as well as giving her $18K a year for a living stipend. Another is offering tuition waivers and other lures.

She's got choices. And she may yet have more options.

When she told me about this tonight, I congratulated her.

But in truth, part of me is sad.

At the outset, I should say that I don't regret our decision to split. New Jersey is among the last places I'd want to live. And even without the whole relocation issue, there were more significant factors that contributed to the end of our relationship.

Nevertheless, XGF and I have remained friendly and interested in each other's well-being. No matter where she picks up and moves to, I'm going to feel sad about her departure. We have known each other going on eight years, have traveled to some strange little corners of the world together, had our lives and our dreams intertwined.

It's not easy to say good-bye to all that.

Theoretically, I did that a year ago when I moved out. But as I've observed in my experience, loss often occurs in stages.

There are moments of significant change. In a breakup, there are the discussions that lead to dissolving the relationship, there's the sorting of belongings, the moving out.

And then there are those changes that seem to happen on the sly: adjusting to an empty bed, learning to cook for one again (forced by the proliferation of tired leftovers in the fridge), learning the ex is dating, passing significant dates on the calendar without the shared traditions of years previous.

Somehow, I see XGF's impending move -- including the sale of the house we owned together and the final distribution of all the crap that's still inside it -- as the final, final stage of the loss of that relationship.

So while I applaud XGF for her unsurprising success, it feels bittersweet. What she embraces requires of me the final letting go.