My Liminal Terminal Degree

I’m about to graduate with an MFA.  I’m told it’s terminal – though I hear there are some experimental PhD programs in places like California that could extend my student life expectancy.  But basically, I went out into the world and got a degree that’s like a disease no sane person would ever want to catch.  But I wanted to.  As several people in a writing workshop class I took once commented, I tend to be a bit morbid.  And that’s precisely why I wanted to get an MFA.  I have a certain inclination towards morbidity – and also hyperbole.  I like to dissect relationships.  I like to cut them open, rip through the sinew that held them together, see where the heart is, find out if they bleed. 

A terminal degree also appealed to me because I like endings.  Well, I should say, I like writing about them.  Things are easier to write about if you know how the story ends.  [It ended when he said, “But why would you want me?” and she realized that she had run out of ways to try to help him understand. They both gave up on him.]  Endings are also nice because they can often have a palatable combination of melancholy hope and perspective that is quite palatable to the page.  It makes for delectable discourse when articulated alongside the raw heart and meaty parts of the severed relationship. 

I really like writing about how things end.  I even like to read the last page of a book before I decide if I’m going to commit to reading the whole thing.  I don’t want to go on the emotional journey of turning through page after page in my bed at night, if it’s going to leave me sad or confused or somehow dissatisfied.  Sex partners are for faking it; I want to be real with my books.  I want closure and I want to feel like I learned something by opening that book and opening myself up to the experience of reading it. 

And then there’s poems.  Poems are great because they’re short, so you know they’re going to end soon and you usually don’t get bored or have unrealistic expectations of them.  Poems are like a literary fling.  Sometimes I cheat on my memoir with a poem.  That’s how much I like endings.  I like to flirt with them.  I like to start something just to finish it.  I like the way time bleeds out on the page. 

I wanted an MFA because I wanted to write about everything that had ever happened to me.  I wanted to put my past on the page and leave it there to die, while I went on with my life – healthy and happy and loved.  I wanted to say: This is how that ended.  And now look at how I’ll finally begin. 

I wanted an MFA because I thought that if I cut open my life, I would find the sinew and bones that held me together and I would finally be able to get to the heart of what’s the matter with me.  And I had hoped maybe I could perform some sort of transplant so my heart wouldn’t be my problem anymore.   But I couldn’t perform the transplant.  I got an MFA.  I’m not a doctor.