And then...then, we did it again

The last 4 ½ months of our lives went by like a total blur.  I felt like I was drowning at least 80% of the time.  At any given moment, if you walked into our home, you were bound to hear word vomit full of critical and literary terms, projected numbers of marketing research, close reading interpretations of literature many of you have never even heard of, curses of outrage at group projects, sighs of relief at passed tests and the occasional sob over the stress of it all, the difficulty of it all, the complexity of making life work with full time jobs and school and church and each other. All for the pursuit of a higher, higher education.

I know we don’t have the hardest lives out there, I know there are people who try harder, stress more, and even raise children amidst this chaos.  I salute them.  I barely survived last semester.  I did it; I bit the bullet and sacrificed sleep and TV programs and leisure reading.  I haven’t picked up a craft in months.  New recipes are a thing of the past and I haven’t baked in so long I fear I am losing my touch. BUT, I did it. AND I did it with a 4.0 – a feat I try not to brag about but am truly proud of.

Then winter break came, and while we still maintained the rest of our obligations, we breathed a little easier without school to worry about.  Getting older is harder on some days than others.  Shortly after we took our last finals we lost a professor who was near and dear to our hearts.  It made my heart ache for all the students who will never get the blessing of being his pupils, but it also made my heart soar with joy that we were both lucky enough to have had him touch and change our lives in a permanent way.  It made me sure that my pursuit of this higher education that will let me teach other young minds is the exact right thing to do.  Someday, I hope to change just one life the way he changed thousands of lives.  The older you get in life, the more people you lose, and it never gets any easier.

On a happier note, we were blessed with a fabulous vacation that regenerated our hearts, souls, mind and bodies and left me feeling more energetic and brave than ever.  So, as if last semester wasn’t tough enough, we registered for even more classes with higher difficulty levels, and…well, we will do it again.