Academia dealt a pretty big blow to... well, everything really, over Easter weekend.
I was nearing graduation, I was making life plans around when I was going to move back home and have some time freed up for pursuing my writing career. Seven classes. So close!
Before I left for Nebraska to spend Easter with my family (including having a sit-down, number-crunching, life-planning session with my dad), I had an appointment with an academic adviser. I was just going in to touch base, see if it mattered which classes I took first, if any of them were only offered one semester, make sure I wasn't missing anything.
I was missing something. I was missing a big something.
Seven somethings.
They're called "electives."
"But I'm done with my Gen Eds," I said. "I should just be down to English classes now, right?"
"Well, you have your Gen Eds, and then you have your English classes, but then there are all these extra credits that are just, you know, 'electives.'"
It was like she dropped a rock in my gut, and I wanted to run out of her office crying right then and there, two minutes after sitting down.
"Well, but I'm still a senior, right?" I asked, wanting to salvage a little bit of academic dignity. Academic dignity is rare and incredibly valuable as a nontraditional student.
"Well, I think they listed you as a fourth year student, but we like to say that seniors are between x credits and y credits, and you are at z credits. So you aren't really a junior, but you're just barely on the cusp of being a senior, so you're just kind of, well, 'there.'"
Which is exactly how I've felt for my entire college career in the eyes of the University, but it still stung hearing someone say it out loud, someone who knows nothing about me, someone who is annoyed with me for making her come into the office at 8 AM and just wants me out.
So then she started doing that thing advisers are trained to do where she helps me decide what electives I want to take, like you can decide that in one random sitting. "You could study museum curating and work in a museum, you could take some journalism classes... you know, I don't really know why, but you really look like a librarian!" (I was wearing grunge pants and an Elsa t-shirt under a polka-dot jacket.) And then came The Question: "What do you want to do with writing when you graduate?"
I'm not ashamed of my answer, but I know I'm judged for it fairly regularly. "I just want to be a stay-at-home mom and write novels."
"Oh," she said, glancing down at my purity ring. "So you have a husband and kids?"
I grinned a little, my you-have-no-idea grin. "Not yet."
It's easy to be joyful around Easter time. Easter is when we get to celebrate our salvation, how much God loves us, how powerful He is. It's easy to get caught up in a "spiritual high" on Easter. So that's what I did all weekend. (Except for the half hour cry-fest on I-80, but anyway...)
But then I had to come back to Iowa City, and there was homework to do, and there was craziness at work (I work in daycare, it's practically made of craziness), and there was no writing time, and all I could think was "I can't do this for three more years."
It's felt like breaking up with a boyfriend--you come to love something so much, it becomes a huge part of your life, a part of your future, and when it turns out to not be what you thought, everything you thought you knew about the thing, about your future, about yourself, is suddenly flung into question.
It's felt like starting over, even though I know it isn't. I've been here for almost four years now, and whether that lovely adviser admits it or not, I am a senior, and I still have no student debt to my name.
It's felt a lot like heartbreak.
All of this to which God asks: "Do you still trust Me?"
I'm still here, doing what He's sent me here to do. He started this, so I have to trust Him to finish it.
Dad and I are still scheming, and we've got it down to two more years. The electives allow me to go for a bonus minor in Educational Psychology, something that will allow me to study both my day-job profession and my target audience as a writer (young adults), and still have room for two fun classes, like Classical Mythology or something. ("You need something easy, something you can show up for and pass without thinking about it," my dad said. I scrolled down on the list of possibilities. "Oooo! I could take Latin!")
So this is me: still trucking along, still hanging out in Iowa City, still trying to balance Work and School and Writing.
Still trying to trust God's timing.
