I have one week left. And then my first quarter of grad school will be done. I will have three left until the cap-and-gown day next spring.
As you know, grad school has been very stressful. It’s kept me very busy. It’s made me really stop and think about who I am and what I want. Yet I can honestly say, I am a different person than I was when I started two months ago.
I think I have more courage now. I’m not as afraid to talk to people. I’m much less afraid to talk to the opposite sex, like I have been in the past. I am seeing myself differently. Those are all good things.
There have been times these past few months where I wanted to drop out of school. I found myself not wanting to do it, and wondered if I wanted to do it for the rest of my life. But if my first experience in undergrad taught me anything it was that nothing is set in stone. So, even if I study journalism, it doesn’t dictate the rest of my life.
There have been times these weeks where I’ve felt lonely. Even as I made fabulous new friends, I missed my old ones I couldn’t see as often. I was too swamped sometimes to keep up socially. But they’re still there. I think the loneliness I’ve felt has compelled me to find people and hold onto them. So it wasn’t such a bad thing.
Which reminds me: nothing is a waste. The first two years of undergrad were not a waste. The three years at my job were not a waste. Relationships that may have ended are not a waste. This will not be a waste.
I don’t seek lessons to lessen the pain, lessons find me whether I want them to or not. And these few weeks, I have had a lot of them.
The Things That Get Us Through
Without overly concerning anyone, I should honestly say that it’s been a difficult couple of weeks. They’ve been the kind of weeks where you rethink your entire life, the kind of weeks where you don’t know what to do with yourself or your life. They’ve been the kind of weeks where you just want to throw in the towel.
Everyone has been there at some time or other. Lots of people are there now. I think that what is important is not to lose hope, and to have the things that get you through. Slowly and surely, mine are getting me through.
If life is less about the destination and more about the journey, we need help getting past the bumps in the road. This week especially, I appreciate the people and the things that push me on, pull me along and lift me up.