It's the second week of the fall semester and every residential and academic building is wallpapered with flyers that say what I need, what I should be doing, and oh, what fun it will be: "UVM Women's A Cappella Group: Auditions Sunday Night!" "Need a job? Come work at the Hidden Bean Cafe in the CWP Rotunda." "The Cynic, University of Vermont's student newspaper, NEEDS WRITERS!" "Need help with a paper? Visit the Writing Center in L&L." Then there are the messages on my phone mail from Scott, my Complex Coordinator: "Hey all you RA's, I just want to remind you that we begin the first of our weekly staff meetings on Monday from nine to eleven. See everybody there!" I'm on duty with Mary, or is is Evan, on Tuesday... or is it Friday night? I've got to check my calendar -- oh look! I don't have a weekend free to visit my boyfriend until the end of October!

The symbol for Libra is a balanced scale. Libra, you have so much you want to take on that you're afraid the scale might break. Your reality: it will, so choose wisely. Your best friend says you need to sit down with a pen and paper and write a list of pros and cons. But lists have never done you any good. You love to write them but you never use them. Do you need the money from the cafe job? Isn't being a Residential Assistant giving you free room and board? And music? It's not the same, singing with your stereo speakers. You miss performing, the rush, the beauty of singing. You want to write journalism. You love writing about the experiences of others. Hey Libra, have you considered your academics as a priority?

I want to go to the Activities Fair on Wednesday, September 10. It's sponsored by the Student Life Center. Groups from across campus will be there to harass me, interest me, and suck me into their co-ed clubs. I don't want to do just one thing, have one concentration, become unbalanced. The weight of my books is killing my shoulders. SCHOOL! Academics first! Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I go from nine to five. Thursday it's eleven to five. What's a girl to do? And they call themselves the Student Life Center? I'm beginning to think I have no life.

You have Spanish essays to write, residence hall programs to schedule, a hundred pages to read for your English class, an audition for the a cappella group on Wednesday night, an interview for the cafe on Thursday morning and you're worried that you'll fall behind. You're tired. You stop. And you write...and write...and write. It is this experience that makes you who you are. It makes you mellow, makes you sane. The weight of each word on the page balances your tipsy Libra scale.

Okay. It's another one of those Sunday nights where I'm lying in bed worrying about the week to come. I've always been like this. My mother told me recently that when I was little she used to be scared I'd give myself an ulcer. But she always found a way to calm me down. We grew out of the stage when she could stop my crying by telling me not to worry and reminding me to breathe. I lay in bed the other night and cried about how our generation has it coming to us. There I was, wanting to do everything. Yearning to report news, get my residents involved, really enjoy myself and learn in my classes; reaching out and grabbing everything that was in reach but I couldn't reach this one alone. I had just gone to listen to a female professor of sociology speak on the subject of pornography in the media. I added the pornography problem to the list of weights piled on my shoulders that eventually pushed me to tears. I had a way to dry the tears and lift the weight. It had nothing to do with the Kleenex box on my night stand, either. I have found my own way of calming down when things go too far, when the load gets too heavy, when I am acting plain crazy.

You write.

I get it all out.
     (the schoolwork,
     the papers,
     the RA job,
     the newspaper,
     the singing group,
     my boyfriend.)

And it doesn't matter if you don't come out with a choice.

I can create my own perspective from it all.
(As long as it's down and out of my mind; I become free. Nothing is tying me down. No worries, no more, no more pressing problems. They belong to the paper now. Paper and ink deal with my problems much better than I ever could.)

And you can go on with your life.

(Write those papers, call my boyfriend, go to my RA meetings, call The Cynic and see what happens, try out for the a cappella group and go from there. I can keep going. I can move on.)

Because now I can breathe.