Big Changes

As I finish packing up for college for what will end up being the final time, I find myself becoming really sad that this isn't the place for me. ISU, as great of a school as it is, was not the right fit for me. I loved my classes and my studies, which is why it took me two years to figure it out, but I do not feel at home there. Nothing I did at school made me feel welcome, accepted, or truly special. It was, in the end, just too big. I could not find a group and fit in. I couldn't find my niche that made everything else not matter. I did not belong. And that's not really a statement about anything I did wrong, anything wrong with the school, or anything wrong with the people. I just chose the wrong school, and didn't figure out for too long. I don't know my professors, I don't know my fellow psychology students, I don't know anyone, really. I don't feel like I can change anything. I do not feel empowered. I feel like a number. And that's not the way anyone wants to feel.

I used to look at the fact that I was going to a big school and think that there were a lot of things I would learn at ISU that I couldn't learn at a small school. Things that would help me later in life. Things like how to guide myself through everything, how to figure it out on my own, how to motivate myself, how to succeed without incentive or outside motivation. And while I think the last one is still true, I also feel like a lot of those things are not good life lessons. When I go to grad school I will not be one in 27,000. I will be one in maybe 10 that that professor is working with. I will have guidance. I will have someone I can turn to for help. And I am not prepared for that. I do not know how to ask the right questions. I do not know how to work closely with professors. I do not know how to do research. I do not know how to communicate. I know how to study and read and occasionally write. When I graduate from grad school, I will not be one in 27,000. I will be a member of a team. I will work closely with other people of equal, higher, or lesser education and experience, and I have no idea how to do any of that. I know how to read and study and write.

In all, I do not feel prepared for life outside of college, and it terrifies and saddens me. If I could go and do it all over, I would have chosen a different school. Do not get me wrong, I have had some great moments at school I have made a few very good friends and many acquaintances at school. Some of them are friends I hope to keep forever. Some of them I know I will not speak to after I walk across the stage this spring.

I am graduating a year early. I am moving on with my life outside of college, and I am going to figure out how to do all of the things I wanted to learn in college that I never did learn. I am going to hopefully pursue AmeriCorps next year, and do something empowering and world-changing. I want to make a difference, something I could never do at school. I feel small and powerless. I feel defeated. And I refuse to put myself again and again back to the same place that makes me feel this way. I keep crying as I am packing because I wasted 3 years of my life at the wrong school. Things could have been so much different, and so much better had I just made a different choice 3 years ago. It may be too late to choose a different school, but it is not too late to change the future. Things will get better and I will change the world.

College Years

Today I started packing up to move back to college. Really, this first involved unpacking everything from when I moved home in December. As I dove through boxes and papers and grades and photos and letters and tokens of moments spent at college, I couldn't help but sob. Every one of these items was a memento to a time of my life that I am not sharing with my fiance. Every one of these items represents the life I gave up with him to indulge myself in education. Every one of these objects represents the opportunity cost of college. They represent nights held in his arms, and mornings starting off with kisses. They represent coming home from work together and sharing stories of our day as we cuddle on the couch watching the news. They represent hugs, kisses, days, weeks, months, years. They represent the comforts of seeing him every day except for deployments and TDYs.

These are supposed to be the greatest years of my life, but they are the hardest. They are the lost years. They are the years I chose to indulge myself rather than nurture my relationship. They are the years I chose to be selfish. They are the years spent waiting. They are the years spent holding the phone, not holding his hand. College for me will always be a black void of time that I didn't do everything I could have for the one I love. I know it's never too late to change things, but I also know that the boy wants me so much to be in school, and really, I want to be in school too, but I can be in school at any time. He signed a contract and gave his life to the government for 6 years. He can't choose where he lives or when he's home or when he's here or there. I however can choose. And knowing that I have that choice and that I've taken the selfish path for the past 2 years is hard, and even harder when looking at all the memories from those two years. Memories that will always be mine, not ours. Memories that will always be tainted with loneliness and  longing. I am having a terrible time getting motivated to go back to school, and getting motivated to study and spend time with friends and be a college student. If I weren't headed to college, I would be headed to Germany, to welcome my boy home from his deployment. I may never know if I'm making the right choice, and I may always be burdened with "what ifs" and the knowledge of what could have been. I just hope I am strong enough to live with the consequences of the life I chose not to give us for now.