Things are Heavy Right Now


I have been thinking about mom a lot lately and I don't know why.  I miss her.  I feel her presence sometimes, not in the spiritual sense, but more like in a memory, as if a big what-if is speaking to me from far away.  I wonder if she can hear me too, or if my sadness just goes out into the void.  I find it unfathomable to believe that she is gone, even now, 4 years later.

I have had some bouts of self-doubt lately so maybe that is why she is on my mind.  She was always my sounding board, my conscious, my wisdom.  Now that I have to rely on myself things feel tougher than they ever have been before.  I do not have the confidence to rely on myself or on my own judgement.  I am prone to rash decisions and not-good decisions, so I worry all the time 24/7 if I am doing the right thing, if I am doing enough.

Going back to school has required much more from me than I ever realized.  The halcyon memories I have of college from the first go around are far different than the reality of going back to school in my forties.  It is harder, yet it is more rewarding.  But oh my god it is exhausting.  I have to work to try and pay the bills and yet I have to find time to study.  That time is usually late at night when I come home from work at 10 PM.

I am barely hanging on most days, rushing to do some assignment or read some chapter before it is due the next morning.  I rarely have time to reflect on the knowledge that I am gaining or to make the connections between subjects.  I never have the time to step back and see the bigger picture of what I am trying to accomplish.  And now, when I do step back, it all seems so large and heavy.  It feels ponderous to juggle a dream with reality.  I juggle things heavy so fast that I worry about dropping all of the balls in the air.  I guess if that happens I can hear mom telling me to pick them back up again already! I can actually hear her voice saying that to me when I imagine it.  I think she probably worries too that I am not taking good enough care of myself, and she would be right.

I just don't have time to catch up on everything; there is always something else that must be completed ASAP.  Sleep often takes a backseat, I have had to say goodbye to Facebook for awhile...I am making changes so that I take better care of myself, so that I can give more to everything, so I can keep those balls juggling in the air a little bit longer.  Going back to school, if I have learned nothing else, has forced me to learn how to prioritize and how to focus on the task at hand, sometimes to a fault.  I find myself unintentionally shutting out anything that does not fit into my goals.  Sometimes I cut things out too deep and that tends to leave a scar in life.  Sure the tissue grows back but the texture is not the same; it is functional but it is not pretty.



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