... well, at least one step closer.I'm in class. My last class of my graduate career. It's amazing that yesterday I woke up dreading it, and now I'm practically doing cartwheels inside and wishing the last hour and a half wasn't taking nearly as long as it feels like it's taking. My group finished presenting about a half hour ago, and even though our paper still isn't due for another two weeks and we have some work left on it... we're done. DONE DONE DONE.
I think the part I was (still kind of am) dreading about this last class was finality. Death. Anytime something ends, it's like a little death. And for me, this is the end of nineteen years straight of connecting my identity to my success and achievement as a student. Not as Kristine, but Kristine, straight-A student grades K-12, or Kristine, Gifted and Talented and then Magnet School student, or Kristine, 3.76 Magna Cum Laude in College, or Kristine, graduate student at Vaaaanderbilt. School is something I can handle, and even when I hate it, it's familiar and I can get it done.
After this? The unknown.
And for the first time ever, at least this far in "the game," I don't know what's next. And school isn't an option. At least not right now, because that's not where my heart is at. I could go on to a doctoral program, but I'd be doing it because school is the only constant I've ever known and because I'd be the first Dr. in both my respective families. Nowhere in that is a motivation anywhere close to the things or desires God has placed on my heart.
So that's what I'm getting back to. A series of conversations with a close mentor and my husband have me going deeper and stepping further away from a place of settling. Believing my heart and my talent are worth more than a dead-end job I despise or a job I go after just so I won't be the last of my classmates to get a job and won't disappoint my professors, mentors, friends, and family. I fear the shame of failing, because I've always had school to come back to as an achievement - as an accomplishment - as proof and validation of my worth.
But not anymore.
2 comments:
I'm so excited that you are finished!! I'm praying that your next step would be made more clear! I'd love to catch up sometime soon!!
your last paragraph resonates with me, though for obviously different reasons, as i am not finished with school. ;) but thank you for writing honestly. i fear the shame of failure, too.
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