The corner
Everytime I feel like I might be turning a corner and things might be improving, the road straighten itself and moves that corner eleventy billion more miles away.
I was ready to face today. I was ready to start being upright, to deal with pain and get on with it.
I can’t.
I recalculated. I decided that I could go to school for half-days this week. I decided that I could make plans with my sister, who lives 10 minutes from campus so that if I needed to, I could jet over there and lie down for a while between classes. I had a plan. I was ready to turn a different corner towards normalcy.
I can’t.
Because my program director, who is doing what is smart and right and reasonable, has told me to stay home. All week. Unless I see my neurologist and she gives me a note of clearance saying that it will do me no harm to be back at school. So yea.
I am frustrated. Sad. Tired. Bored. Overwhelmed.
The program director, who I really really like, is working with me. She’s setting up videotaping for a few of my classes so that I can hear and see what’s being taught and not fall as far behind. She’s pushing all my exams back and reassuring me, but I cannot climb out of this hole of self-pity. I have never taken an incomplete for anything in my life. I don’t do incompletes.
This is not what was supposed to happen. This isn’t how this was supposed to go. This is not my life.
I need to find the next corner. And then I need to hurl my whole life around it before I miss my chance.
6 Responses to “The corner”
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Welcome! I'm Katie, a 28 year old, full-time graduate student who just happened to have brain surgery in November of 2007 to give my ginormous brain a little more space. This blog chronicles my daily life, from relentless headaches to being a doctor's wife. Sit down, get comfortable and stay for a while.
Stupid moving corners. I feel you though. I have to say, I’m glad the director is looking out for you and videotaping…sometimes the kindness of people is pretty amazing.
Get better now and going back will be easier. Xo
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I’m happy to hear your program director is so understanding!
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I’m glad your PD is doing the right thing and taking care of you. My advice is to be very gentle with yourself. You deserve to take all the time you need to get well – you can hurl later.
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Bored, overwhelmed, and in intractable pain can really break one’s spirit. I know because I have been going through a lot of that lately. While I am not in school like you, I was in the middle of a move to a different house and preparation to make the other house “sale-able.” But my body had other plans. And I like to think that God had other plans as well.
Katie, you are such a doer, planner, performer, perfectionist. You place impossible demands on yourself and then berate yourself when you perceive that you have fallen short of your goal. Your goals will wait for you. Your PD is a perfect example of a gift you have been given in the middle of this tornado, and you have trouble receiving it because you let your rules and your ideas about who you are stand in the way.
I always hate to sound like I am preaching. But I care so much about you, and I know there are still lessons to be learned for you…possibly lessons that will challenge your ideals, but may also open many doors for you if you would only just try to see a bigger picture of possibility. Please, please, don’t hear this as criticism because it’s anything but. I just want to convey that everything has a purpose even if we aren’t privy to the rewards of the current circumstances.
You won’t be wandering in this current desert forever. And although it seems like you’ve been here forever with no hope for resolution, I truly believe some good will come out of it. Lots of good, in fact.
You will feel better. You will accomplish many things in your life. And you will be happy.
You are so strong. I know you don’t believe it. But we all see it. You are, Katie. You are amazing.
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Previous comments said it all.You have 1 life. T
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Dude, you need to stop being so hard on yourself. Picture a loved one in the same predicament as you, imagine what you would say to them, and then take your own advice!
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