And the earth unleashed the full weight of her emotions. And the embryonic plants, covered by her warm embrace, were convinced to raise their sleepy heads upward, upward, toward the light.
The translation: It’s pouring rain and the seeds better like it.
I am not entirely sure where to start so I will just begin…
Lately my life feels like a tidal wave, I can see it coming but I can’t get away. There is no high ground to climb for safety. All I can try and do is hold on and wait for the water to roll out again. I am sure many of you feel the same way right now…
So much has happened since the pandemic hit. I had a job, then got sent home for a month, which wasn’t a break because I was homeschooling three kids and doing a terrible job at it, although they did all pass, so hand clap to me? Then I went back to work, but it was too hard to maintain with the kids and their needs (after such a huge change to their lives – from being able to socialize to staying at home) so now I am just working the store – hoping I can find a remote job since no one still knows what is going on with schools this fall and if I would able to even commit to time in an office.
And all the while I feel the weight of the water above me, trying to hold on to anything, any lifeline to keep me afloat, as I slowly feel like I am drowning.
I have been so down lately, which isn’t like me at all. Normally I am the biggest optimist, but the emotions are flooding me, constantly washing over and through me, threatening me.
There are truths and stories bursting out of me but I can’t seem to find the words. I have time but I can’t focus on writing. Instead I sit and pick my nails, wondering what’s next.
I put myself on antidepressants to try and get through it all. (ain’t no shame in the mental health game) That barely helps. And the wave keeps coming.
I think the fear of the unknown is stunting my personal growth. I feel like I can almost grab on to something, anything, to pull me out of this but I don’t have the strength to hold on. People will say we should have accomplished something during the quarantine, but to those of us who aren’t it feels especially daunting to even continue trying.
I read this quote:
I see the value in the quote, but it hurts. It hurts that I feel like I am wasting this time and opportunity to reset. And maybe I am resetting and shifting and growing, but I still question it, and it’s painful.
After years of therapy the main thing I got out of it was that “I am good enough”. Maybe I don’t have to change the world, be brilliant, be perfect, be whatever someone else wants me to be. Maybe I need to quiet the voice inside that is guilting me to be who everyone else wants me to be and just be ok being myself.
Maybe if I let go of the expectations the water will recede and I will be able to breathe again.
I am now almost two months out from graduating college after 20 years of trying to attain this goal. And while it feels good to finally accomplish that, I am left wondering ‘now what?’. I realize that I live pretty much in the middle of nowhere but there are jobs within a 30-minute radius of me and many of them are pretty good jobs. I have interviewed for a few but I am never the chosen one.
I keep telling myself that it obviously wasn’t the right one and something will come along, but it stings a little bit. Perhaps I shouldn’t have chosen such a lofty mid-life crisis. Hah!
I busted my brain trying to finish as quickly as I could – often maxing out credits and attending two schools just to get through it. I took my family on this crazy ride and they supported and helped me – even to their own detriment sometimes. They believed in me and I wish I could believe in myself like that.
The struggle is real, tho. It is very hard to find a job. Maybe I should have stayed where I was, content to be looked-over when it came to promotions and raises, but I believed there was more to my life than that. Maybe that’s the fallacy of being told you can be whatever you want to be. Maybe there is an expiration date on dreaming. Who knows.
I guess in the long run it will be worth it, but right now I am wondering if it was the right choice. I feel like a failure. This experiment didn’t turn out as I had hoped.
Yes, I still believe in following your dreams. I will still teach my kids to believe in themselves. A big problem I tend to have is leaping before I look. I just go for it, unaware of what pitfalls may become me. I took the road less traveled – left security behind – because I believed there was more for me in this life. Maybe there is. Maybe the job I thought I had will call me back, but it’s been over a week since I took all the tests and I haven’t heard back on a start date. Maybe they will call tomorrow. Who’s to say.
I will keep on keepin’ on because it’s what I do best, but the seams are starting to unravel. All the stars are so far away!! I wanted a degree so I would be passed over because of my merit and it wouldn’t be a degree standing in my way. Now I wonder if I had any merit in the first place, and maybe I was just lucky to have a job at all…
Anywho, enough. Pull up my pants and keep trying! I am not looking for sympathy or having a pity party. I just needed to get that off my chest and be real for a minute.
I truly believe the feat I accomplished was worth it, and I learned more in the last year and a half than I have in a very long time, I guess I just expected more immediate results. 😉
I am finally doing it – fulfilling my dream of finishing my bachelor degree!
It is quite different this time around, with almost 20 years of adult life experience to base my learning on. I see now how some classes I didn’t think made any sense to the degree-path actually are important. The classes I am taking all fit together in some way and reinforce what I am learning. It’s pretty neat, actually, to understand it now. The class that terrified me, Public Speaking, now barely makes me bat my eye. I chose to go to Metro State College of Denver previously because they allowed you to skip public speaking if you took an upper-level language course. (I took German because I already knew it from having lived there growing up)
Now I see why it is so important… In my previous job at the Wyoming DOT I worked in the right of way department and was involved with the public, from private meetings with landowners to public meetings with sometimes most of the town. I was always so very nervous. I think if I hadn’t been so scared of this class oh-so-long ago it might have benefitted me in my job.
It is odd being in class with people that could be my kids – in fact, they are closer in age to my oldest child – but I feel that maybe I have something they can learn from me as well.
However, the campus is huge and I am feeling it in my old muscles! I pretty much need to stretch when I get to school – haha! That wasn’t a problem almost 20 years ago…
I have also been taking advantage of resources on campus this time around – from the career center to activities with other students. I was too shy before to do those things. Now I am old and don’t care. 🙂
It makes me sad I wasn’t able to get my degree until now, due to life and other circumstances, but persistence is an amazing thing and I am showing my kids you can do anything no matter how old you are.
I have 13 classes left on my degree and I am so, so excited! Fingers crossed my brain can do it!
This is the picture of the 2nd day of 15th/16th grade my cousin made me take.
lobotomyplease 