I Don't Know (Said Out Loud, In Front of Everyone)

The professor called on me today. Second week of class, and I genuinely did not know the answer. Not in a 'I blanked' way, in a 'I have no framework for this yet' way. And instead of bluffing, which is what I would have done in any other situation probably, I just said: I don't know.

The room did not implode. A few people looked up from their notebooks. The professor paused for just a second and then, this is the part I keep replaying, he wrote something down. Not in a bad way. In a 'noted' way. He moved on, called on someone else, and that was it. Class continued. I sat there for the rest of the hour feeling oddly like I'd done something slightly brave by accident.

I'm the youngest person in that room by at least five or six years. Most of them have jobs, some of them have kids, and they all seem to know exactly why they're sitting there. I picked this class because the course description was the least intimidating one on the list. That's my whole strategy so far.

Walking out of class still thinking about it.

I wrote that in my notebook after class and then stared out the window at the parking lot for a while, which is apparently what I do now instead of having a plan.

I don't know is going to have to be okay for a while, I think. The blog has always been where things become real for me, I wrote about mailing the application and then it was real, I wrote about the running and then it stuck, so I'm writing this down now too.

Notebook open. Nothing written yet.

I don't know what I'm doing here yet. But I showed up, and I answered honestly, and apparently someone thought that was worth noting.