I’m working on the grad school stuff. Again. Part of the hold up is my own fault. Part of it is because the admissions office has managed to lose just about everything except my initial application and-- surprise!-- my application fee, which of course was cashed within days of me sending in my application. Go figure. Of course, that was… what?… a year ago?
My indecision resulted from not knowing what degree to pursue. I am not returning to school so I can become a doctor or an engineer or a landscape designer, I’m going back to school because… I want to. Yeah, I know… I should seek therapy.
My original intention was to get my Masters in Humanities. What’s that, you ask? (Because I know you’re asking.) Well, it’s a do-it-yourself kind of degree where I can choose my course of study and then take classes from a variety of disciplines. I could take classes in Medieval History or Film and Media or Women’s Studies, as long as they relate to my course of study. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think.
Then I started second guessing myself. I did that thing I sometimes do-- I decided I needed to be practical. Yeah, me. Practical. Go ahead, laugh.
So, being practical, I decided I should get my Masters in English with an emphasis on teaching. So I could, you know, use this degree for something more than a topic of conversation at my next pizza party. I mean, I already have a B.A. in English, might as well get my M.A., right? That’s what I figured. And then I could be a high school teacher. Or maybe a community college teacher. Practical, right? Right.
Once I changed my mind, I started looking at all the English classes I’d have to take (plus some education classes, as well). I have taken a lot of English classes, so the M.A. in English would really be building on what I have already studied. In other words… not too much of a challenge. The education classes, while new, didn’t appeal to me in the least. I don’t want to teach high school and if I ever want to teach at a university, I will need a PhD. Which seems like a long, long way away and not something I want to think about now.
I dragged my feet getting my credentials submitted once I made the choice to pursue a Masters in English. That was my first clue it was a mistake. The other hint that I had picked the wrong major was that I went from being excited about going back to school to losing all interest. I love Shakespeare and British Lit, but I really don’t want to take all my classes in the English Department.
So, here I am, a year later, changing my mind once again. Or correcting a mistake, depending on how you look at it. I have officially changed my course of study back to Humanities and I have re-requested all my college transcripts (I know that sounds whiny, but I attended four colleges in three states in twelve years-- that is a lot of transcripts to have to request. Twice.). The verdict is still out on whether I’ll need to replace my letters of recommendation-- which will be a bigger headache than the transcripts.
I may never be able to do anything with my Masters in Humanities. I may be making a mistake by pursuing what I’ll enjoy rather than what is practical. I may be back here in a year, bitching about how much work all these new and different classes are. Who knows? I just know this is the right decision for me, right now. I’m following my heart rather than my head, which is what I should have done in the first place.
As to what my course of study will be, the irony is I still intend to take plenty of English classes. I imagine that by the time I’m finished (whenever that is), I will have taken a fair amount of writing, history and women’s studies classes, as well. When I think about all the possibilities and options and challenges, I get excited about going back to school.
Of course, it’s a moot point if I don’t get accepted. Now that would suck. It would be funny, but it would still suck.
When it comes to my health, I tend to be of the opinion that as long as I can talk, I can breathe and if I can breathe, I’ll live. I have a high tolerance for pain and discomfort and I hate hospitals and doctors, so I managed to almost entirely avoid contact with the medical community until about ten years ago. When I was diagnosed with adult-onset asthma in my mid-20s, I was very resistant to the idea that I had something wrong with me-- something that couldn’t be cured with Tylenol or a good night’s sleep. Something I would always have and always need to monitor. The doctors could believe what they wanted, as far as I was concerned I was healthy, I just had a little trouble breathing sometimes.
I often didn’t take my medications because I felt fine. I figured I knew better than the medical professionals how to manage my illness. I didn’t need to be reminded every day that I had asthma-- if it got bad, I would treat it. Otherwise, I ignored it. I refused to let some disease define who I was. I refused to be “the sick girl.”
I found myself in the ER on several occasions because I didn’t pay attention to the warning signs and waited too long to take my meds. Not being able to breathe is a very, very frightening thing so you’d think I’d learn, right? But no, it took me awhile to get over my denial. I finally came to the conclusion that it was easier to medicate myself as prevention than wind up in the hospital being treated for a full-blown asthma attack. I still have times when I foolishly let my prescriptions run out and put off making doctor’s appointments. Then I wake up wheezing one morning and remember how quickly I can deteriorate. That’s enough to make me take better care of myself.
The most frustrating part of being relatively healthy through childhood and into my mid-20s and then developing health problems as an adult is that I can’t take my health for granted any more. In addition to asthma and nonspecific tachycardia (which is just plain fun to say, so it almost makes up for the irksome lack of specificity), I also have hypothyroidism. In the great scheme of things, when faced with the periodic inability to breathe and a heart that sometimes races at 180 bpm for no particular reason, having a sluggish thyroid gland is not a big deal. Which is why, when my prescription started running low a couple months ago, I didn’t rush to make a doctor’s appointment. Then my prescription ran out entirely, but Jay was on his way home and I was busy with work and homecoming preparations. Then I was just plain busy. For six weeks.
What is essentially an easily treatable condition is suddenly plaguing me once again because of my own stupidity. I’m cold all the time, I’m gaining weight, I’m exhausted… and it’s all because I let my prescription run out and didn’t make my health a priority. Two other symptoms of hypothyroidism are irritability and depression, so now I’m wondering whether my inability to deal with people lately is because I’ve over-extended myself and need some down time or because of the condition I haven’t been treating properly. As for depression… do I really need another catalyst for that particular nightmare? I’m prone enough to depression thanks to genetics and my own delightful personality, I don’t need to willfully contribute to my own misery. And yet, I am.
I guess the moral of my little tale is that I need to take better care of myself, mentally and physically. I still refuse to let my illnesses become my identity, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t take them seriously and treat them properly.
On the other hand, until my metabolism is under control again, I have an excuse to be difficult and yell at people. I guess it’s not all bad being “the sick girl.”
She has a pretty face, doesn’t she? You wouldn’t know she was a stray from this picture. What you can’t see are the flea bites and scabs all over her body.
She’s scrawny and missing a lot of fur.
Judging by how thin she is, I guess she’s not much of a hunter. Maybe that’s because she’s been declawed.
She’s been on her own for awhile, but she’s a friendly little thing. And her name is Grace.
“When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”
This line is repeated several times throughout The Alchemist, which I can’t talk about in-depth since the book club doesn’t meet until Friday. Still, it’s an intriguing little book with an underlying theme about pursuing your dreams. There are several life lessons presented in allegorical fashion, reminding the reader that things happen in their own time and that, when you are ready and have learned to read the omens and follow the right path, your dreams will open up to you. Seems simple, really, but maybe in simplicity there is truth.
The Alchemist made me think about how many times I’ve come close to getting something I wanted. Depending on whether I was really ready to fulfill my goal, I either forged ahead and achieved my goal or missed the opportunity because I faltered or back-tracked. I think my writing has been much like that. I have come painfully close to the kind of success I want, and then pulled back for fear I couldn’t live up to my own expectations. I’ve also pursued the wrong paths or tried to manipulate my dream to fit some sort of financial or marketing plan only to find that my dream doesn’t work that way.
There’s also a theory about “beginner’s luck” in the book. Getting a taste of success early on is a way for the universe to push you to keep striving for your dream. Of course, that sort of luck doesn’t hold and you eventually have to take matters into your own hands and do the hard work of continuing to pursue your dream-- or risk failure when your luck runs out. I definitely have experienced this.
The message, I suppose, is what I have always told other people: don’t give up, never give up, find what makes you happy and go for it with everything you have. So much easier to give advice than take it, yes?
The topic of letting go and moving on to new, challenging (and hopefully better) things has been popping up a lot recently. I’ve had more than one conversation on the subject in relation to everything from school to jobs to writing to relationships.
In my case, I have always had a hard time accepting change. I hate disruption to my normal routine, I hate moving, I hate the awkwardness of making new friends, I hate having to start over, I hate being the new girl. I hate change. Change is scary. Change is different. Change means stepping outside the box and challenging myself. Sometimes change means failure. But…
(this is the part where the sun shines and the birds sing and I have an epiphany)
it has been my experience that change is almost always a positive thing. When I went back to college after being out for six years, I thrived. Every long distance move I’ve made has resulted in me loving my new home. I have never regretted leaving a job, though I agonized over every one. I have made wonderful friends in the most unlikely of places and felt incredible relief in being free of unhealthy relationships. And every time I have stepped outside my comfort zone in my writing, I have rediscovered my passion for it.
Change is good. Difficult, terrifying and fraught with potential disaster, but ultimately good. I need to keep reminding myself of that.
Life. Love. Writing. Friendship.
Sex. Books. Movies. Travel. Politics. Feminism. Academia. Insomnia. Rants. Raves. Chocolate. Lots of chocolate. Some names have been changed, some stories have been embellished. Thanks for stopping by and beware of the dog. Read more...
