Page 278: An Education

I have been so intellectually stimulated in the past month and a half. I've been to my fair share of colleges (four, I think), so there has been moments when I've been really into what I was studying at the time. However, I have never been this intellectually stimulated when it's come to my education and I am willing to invest everything I have (and will have) to continue getting this "education high."

I've never had a hard time believing that I was a smart person. I heard about my intelligence so much when I was a child, so I don't think I was ever insecure about it, but there has always been a question about whether I was being intellectually challenged and/or stimulated. When I dropped out of high school at 15, my grandmother inadvertently vouched for me when she told my mother that I wasn't being challenged and the boredom was the reason I didn't want to go to school. I don't know if that was ever fully the case, but I do remember not being as engaged as I should have been. I was pretty much waiting to get to college but even then, staying engaged posed a challenge for me because classes were either too easy or not easy enough.

Did I mention that I had really low expectations coming into this semester? I did. I wasn't even sure I was going to be taking classes this semester until the week before classes started, so I didn't have a lot of time to think about the classes I was going to take and how I would feel about them. I just knew that this was going to be the last year I would be able to go to school before my financial aid completely ran out and given that I was still unemployed, I decided to give this year a shot.

I was excited by all of the new student welcoming things and socializing, especially because I'd never been to a big university before and my first days of class at MATC were not as exciting, but I had no idea that I would end up learning so much and contributing to my education as well as the education of my classmates.

My teachers are highly intelligent women (My Global Studies 101 professor is a PhD in Nursing and does study abroad in Kenya, where she also helps people with HIV and AIDS while my Intro to Conflict Resolution and Peace Studies teacher is a Masters' in Sustainable Peacebuilding student who is only a year older than me and was an English and photography major). I get along with a few of my classmates. One of my classes has a huge number of students while the other has a smaller number students, so that balances out. I really can't find much wrong with my classes at all. Even the distance between my classes (one is literally a sky-walk away from the Union while the other one is about a five-minute walk away from the Union) is wonderful.

This week, a public defender came into my Intro to Conflict Resolution class to speak about incarceration rates and how the prison system has, in essence, become the "new Jim Crow" and I was amazed. Here was a lawyer who was my age and doing her best with her education. She was also super intelligent and I was a little in love with her. It was wonderful and may have reignited an interest for me to pursue law further down the line.

It's amazing to me that at the age of 30, fifteen years after I dropped out of high school, I finally know what it feels like to have this kind of mental stimulation in school. When writing became common and repetitive, after I lost my job and no longer had a daily challenge, and now that cooking is somewhat impossible in my kitchen; school came along and I am so ecstatic that it did.

Page 271: The Art of Reinvesting in Myself

Me, three years ago

 Three years ago, I took an interest in myself and decided to make improvements.

I went to the dentist and instead of him doing constant extractions, I asked him to repair my teeth. At the time, I thought that they were in such disrepair that they would all need to be removed. However, my dentist gave me fillings and allowed me to smile fully, as you can see in the picture above. I took some work but I paid my dental insurance premiums and did the work of getting to my appointments and letting Dr. Meinhardt work his magic.

After a huge fight with my mom that left us barely talking to one another and made me a wreck during the summer of 2012, I decided to start going to therapy. I did the work of going every week and being able to talk through all of my problems as well as allowing myself to take the proper medication to help my anxiety. I had thought that therapy was not for me after two horrible instances with doctors who either misdiagnosed me with every mental illness in the book or thought that I didn't take therapy seriously. I was able to express myself better without ranting on my blog or bottling it all up.

Despite all the things I still needed to work on like my marriage, money skills and the fact that I had no solid job, I was really proud that I had fixed my teeth and started to go to therapy and that made a huge difference.

A year later, I hit a major hurdle. I went into a self-imposed seclusion. I left school. I stopped going to the dentist. When my therapist from the year before had begun a new rotation and I had to see a new therapist, I started to lapse until I just wasn't going anymore. I barely went to the doctor and put off my hand surgery until September of that year. I got a new job in November, so I put my everything into that. Then, I didn't have time to go to therapy or to the dentist. My marriage had even gone from the sporadic visit from Tym to speaking solely on the telephone sporadically until he died last year.

For the most part, I spent the last months of 2014 working, grieving and spending money. I saw a therapist sporadically until he decided that he would not support my extended medical leave. I fired him promptly and didn't see anyone else until I saw a therapist once earlier this year. I never saw him again.

Despite the joy I feel that I'm in school and I'm studying something really important to me, I really feel...unhealthy (for lack of a better word).

My teeth have gone into disrepair again. I have more weight than my frame can handle and I now have to take blood pressure medication. I'm crying more than I did before Tym's death and probably during my grieving phase. When I'm at school; I suck back Wild Cherry Pepsi like it's water and my stomach has a hard time tolerating caffeine. My diet is nearly as healthy as I would like it to be and that's really disappointing because I really enjoy cooking and I am a great cook.

Mentally, I don't feel well at all. I'm not sleeping well. I've been having more panic attacks. I don't write nearly enough so I'm not really expressing myself that way. I hide away in my disheveled bedroom with the lights either dimmed or off, though my lights are so dimmed that I would be better off not having it on at all. I don't even listen to my music as much as I used to. I almost always feel trapped and powerless and incompetent. The dosages of my medication has increased instead of decreased.

It's really obvious that shit needs to change.

After getting myself this low, it feels pretty impossible to even think about where to begin but I guess that I'm acknowledging that there is a problem and I want to change it is a pretty big step. I know that there is a huge chance that Tym's death is part of why I've let myself deteriorate, but I don't want that to become an excuse that I'm using five or ten years down the line. It bugs the hell out of me that I am still grieving and it's only been a little over a year (and I know that it will take time, but I'm not a patient person).

I'm going to make some changes, though. If I could do it at 27, and that was a good year out of a shitty decade, I can do it at 30. My hope is that I won't have to do it again at 33 or 43 or ever because starting over all the time sucks. Now, though, I'm going to do it because I need to. I may not always want to, but I need to.

I'll start with therapy again, because I have a plan with that. I have an appointment in November and I'm going to go, whether I have a job or not, because I need my mental health to be in the best optimal condition. I'm going to make better choices with my diet, in hopes that I'll start cooking again soon. I have a slow cooker and I love that thing so much, so I definitely plan on using it again. I'm going to purchase dental insurance again because I really need to get my teeth worked on again and I like having wonderful front teeth or a nice set of teeth that I can flash when I smile.

I think if I can start with these things, everything else will fall into place. Great things are not easy things but they're necessary. I'm necessary.

Page 247: This Passion Thing

I'm a firm believer that when someone finds their passion, he or she will start seeing life differently. Suddenly, everything in their lives mean nothing until that moment when they find their passion and start following it. Their lives have indelibly changed.

Of course, that's how I thought it went for people who found their passion. I had yet to find mine.

I thought it was writing for a good long while. I really did. I felt like I could write my way through life and I would be complete. Then, I finished my book last year and there was a period in which I wondered what was next. That didn't last long, though, because my husband died and I was totally consumed with other things. Writing didn't feel like a passion anymore, though.

I thought that teaching was my passion as well. I'm not completely convinced that it's not, though. I still really enjoy the idea of teaching children and/or teenagers how to be productive members of society and possible scholars. I feel like I can do that and I would be fulfilled, but I don't know if I'm as passionate about it as I once was. I think part of it was simply projecting because I want to be a mom. Being a mom is always a passion for me, but not one that I will find any time soon.

For lack of a better sentiment, I was passionless. I didn't have a passion for anything.

Then, I started classes this semester.

I wasn't looking for anything that would make me all full of passion and want me to throw my ring in anything, but I did want this semester to mean something much different from the previous two semesters felt. I was looking to prove that I was happy to attend my dream school and that my dead person's money was being put to good use. So, I decided to take a Conflict Resolution class because I once said that I wanted to be good at that. I took a Global Studies class because I was interested in the major. I wanted to learn something before my financial aid ran out. Some. Thing.

Surprisingly, it was not my Global Studies class that made me feel passionate, although I'm learning a lot. I found my passion in my Conflict Resolution course. I felt like this was something I could talk about all day. When my teacher mentioned that she was getting her Master's in Sustainable Peace Building, my eyes glittered like I was looking at something sparkly. I found a part of a calling that I could get on board with, something I could do for the rest of my life.

On October 1st, I am going to officially change my major to Global Security.

I still write. It's not as much as it was when I was a teen or even when I was in my 20s, that shitty decade. I plan to keep working on my book and maybe age, and experience, will help me make it even better than it currently is. As for teaching, maybe I'll teach a new generation about Conflict Resolution and Peace Studies while I'm getting my Master's.

I hope to work for the Federal Government when I'm done with college. I think I would be a good asset to them. I would love to work at the United Nations or NATO, wherever I can make the biggest impact in helping the world become a little more peaceful. Who knows? I could end up becoming the first Black Female President. That would be cool.

Page 241: To the Kid Who Wore Jeans on Her Wedding Day

On this day, seven years ago, I got married. I was 23, naïve and in love. I'd never been in love like that before, so getting married was the next step.

It was a big step for me. I'd never planned on getting married but there I was, in the basement of a courthouse, saying "I Do," and it was perfect. The day, though gray and dreary, was perfect. I don't know how, but I managed to find someone just as weird (if not weirder) as I was. I think he was weirder, though.

Tym introduced me to a lot of things and despite our ups and downs, he was my best friends and one of my biggest advocates. There was one time when I accidentally dropped out of my Spanish class and he actually became indignant when I told him that I wasn't sure that the teacher would let me back in, despite the fact that I was passing. He kept me afloat many times and I'd like to think that I kept him afloat as well. He stopped going to Chicago to get his taxes done because I was good at it.

When he went back home, I was devastated. I didn't know how I would get over it. I was mad at him and at myself because I felt like I had failed and I didn't want a failed marriage like Ross on Friends. We went through so much that I was forced to grow up. I matured so much in such a little time because I had no choice. He made me so happy but he also made me so sad.

I always told myself that we just needed to get to five years. If we got to our fifth anniversary, we would be fine. That's what I believed and when we did, I felt successful. I managed a long distance marriage for five years and that felt like a victory. Then, he was gone for good and yet, I still acknowledge my marriage.

I told my mother last month that I won't talk about him anymore and that I will move forward with my life, but he's still there. He's still in my heart and my mind, despite his death. Sometimes, I wonder if I should keep talking about him so I can grieve properly, but it's devastating to relive that day over and over. It's hard to be labeled "widow" even though I'm only 30. When my dad died, my mom was nearly in her 50s. She'd spent almost 30 years with him, married him and had his children. I don't have any children, even though it's for the best right now. All I have of him is some of his clothes and some of his belongings, as well as memories.

I still feel successful. I did what I was supposed to do and I can look back fondly at our great moments. I'm embarrassed of our bad moments, but they were natural. I don't know how many people will experience love like the love I had, but I hope they do because it'll keep them going. It keeps me going. So, here's to seven years. It was well earned.