Living Dangerously

I'm down in Colorado Springs visiting my husband at work for the weekend. I'm going out of town next week to give a presentation in DC at AAG. Last night, we met with our friends down here in the Springs (you all know them--the ones that own the publishing company...?).

Anyways, we were talking about hitting the metaphorical wall in life, and how I have yet to hit said wall. According to my friend, when you hit the wall, you drop everything and have a critical fail. She believes I'm in trouble of hitting said wall with all the crap that's happening in my life. But here's the thing: I don't ever think I will hit the wall. I keep piling on school and work and hobbies and family, and the wall never appears. I just keep going, and part of me wishes that I would hit the wall, just so I know my limit--like where "enough" is, because I have never found "enough." And it's like all of this stuff happens to me--I sign up for classes and then lose half a semester taking care of my extremely ill husband, and I'm still going to come out of it passing all my classes. And writing half of a novel in the process. And hardly missing 10 hours of work, and receiving offers from researchers who now want to work with me in the future.

I'm not looking a gift horse in the mouth, but does this seem normal? I feel like I've rolled in the crap heap of life over the last few months and I'm still coming out smelling (relatively) like roses. And it's not the first time it's happened, either...my first semester of grad school was probably worse what with the births, the deaths, the marriages, etc., and I still managed to get things done. I guess I'm feeling a little too powerful and sure of myself, and I want that wall: I want to know exactly where my limit is, because not knowing is scaring me.

How much crap can I take, exactly? I feel like I need to know, because once I do, it will be enough somehow--like getting full.

So, with regards to hitting this wall, and my seemingly destructive need to find my wall, my friend believes I have somehow channeled the "risk taking gene" that we hear about in various studies into doing the most seemingly productive tasks I can until they eat me alive. I'm like Eval Knieval, but because I'm physically fragile and have no physical addictions, I'm taking risks in loading up on academia. She thinks I'm zapping myself physically by trying to feed my need for risky behavior with as many productive activities as possible. Weirdly, this makes sense to me--it explains why I needed an MA, and then two MAs, and then working 30 hrs while getting those MAs, and now a PhD...Mr. Borealis has been telling me he's afraid I will double PhD, because it seems like something I would do.

It does seem like something I would do. Of course, my friend being a publisher, her solution is that I channel my risk taking by showing my writing to the world via her publishing company (who didn't see that one coming...?).

So anyways, I decided to see if any of you think this is plausible (that I'm secretly living out my need to live dangerously in the most geeky way possible), and to test the theory.

Today, Mr. B and I went horse back riding. I'm not supposed to do this because of my weak and easily dislocated joints. The last time I was on a horse was when I was like 16 (we won't count Santorini, because that was technically a donkey), and I fell off and hooked my left leg in the stirrup and got dragged for 20 feet, ripping up the knee surgery I had done 7 months earlier. After a 3 hour ride, my butt feels like it's been attacked by a crazed nun with a ruler the size of a two-by-four, and my body feels sore and weak all over, but I had a great time (pictures to come). My horse tripped and did a chest dive into the ground (and I got it on VIDEO!!!) and I didn't fall off (the horse and I were both fine). Aside from the horn on the saddle punching me in the stomach and the bruises on my hands from grabbing the saddle, it didn't even give me a rise. There was seriously no adrenaline. The event rattled the guide and my husband, and I didn't even get butterflies.

I am beginning to believe there's something to the theory that my ability to judge risky situations, or the way I respond to them, has become non-typical in the last few years. I'm wondering if I hit the wall, would I even feel it?

Alula