in which i whine

i'm one who often doubts even my ability to know what i want. it's complicated, in that straight-forward kind of complicated way.
last night, i practically threw a male friend out the door, because i was feeling needy, and if he did not leave, right that instant, something was going to go down, and that something, would not have been about him. that something would have been (you guessed it) about me, my lack of security, my sadness, about validating me--body and mind.
which leads me to a question:
how can i be so sure of what i don't want but then come apart in confronting what i do, want?

i think that i want a graduate degree in folklore, with an emphasis on tradtional dance forms. lately, i have been doubting this. i've been lost in my doubt, really. it's obvious when i'm lost; my mind starts to reel and as it does, i'm tossed by its pitch and spin, begin to drown in its movement. it shuttles between questions that miss the crux of the issue, that mask what my issues are, even and especially from me. "If you apply to a different program, what happens to your writing?" it asks me.
"What writing?" I ask back. (Yes, this is why we worry. i asked back.)
"You know, your writing. That creative nonfiction stuff, those personal essays."
"I don't write anymore."
"But you do."
"You can't say I write if I haven't written anything, now can you?"
(Silence)
"And besides, I'm sick of my own voice."
Which also worries me, because is that some kind of metaphor? In any case, there's that writing question, which in reality is asking, "Are you just running away because you couldn't do this other thing..." and then questions about the wisdom of applying to a program when I know nothing about the program, because I only discovered the programs a few weeks ago, appear. And then there is the fact of there being only a month to research and apply to graduate school, and my mediocre GRE scores, but there isn't time to study for it again, because you know, there is still that teaching gig, and just by the way, while we're thinking about it, I've never actually done any work in folklore. What are my qualifications? How would I get in? What did I do, research-wise, while an undergrad? Nothing. And moreover, I don't dance. Not really. "You can learn," I argue.
"And did I mention my hips?" I retort. (Yes, retort. honestly.)
"They fit in your jeans?"
"Barely."
"Well..."
"They are not 18 anymore. They're heavy. They don't lift."
(Silence)
"You saw yourself yesterday."
I went to a salsa workshop yesterday. It was fun. I was horrific. And my reflection was horrifically large.

It's hard to argue against me; I'm so adamantly pro-failure.

In my head, all these doubts stack up against this single idea, and the let's-go-to-grad-school-and-really-do-some-version-of-that-dance-thing-you-always-wanted-to-do idea has very little to back it. There is no model for this in my life context, no beaten path, no example to follow, and no proof in my personal life that I can carry this off. What proof I have is proof that I over and over again ... fail myself... or that what I begin is something that I thought might be long term but is not, for one reason or another...because of health for the teaching thing, disillusionment for the English degree, lack of drive for the Chinese thing, etc. While some people see this as just "trying things out" or just "having a variety of interests at different stages of life," I suppose, as I go after everything I do with a certain over-intensity, I see that this smacks of inconsistency, and I feel worn out, worn thin, more accurately. I think I blame this on my mother.

And, should I convince myself that I actually have the ability to truly want anything, this graduate degree cannot be short term. You see, I do think I want to dance, or at least study it. I don't think that this choice negates all other possibilities (writing), or that I'm running away from my other failures. I don't even think that I should be viewing everything I've done as failure...but, that's another story. It's just that, how can I be sure?
I think I can't. Perhaps, one can't ever be sure.

Yeah, I totally blame this on my mother.