...taking a few steps back.
Last year, I dropped out of the adult high school program I'd enrolled in. I had good reasons for doing so, but I think it all adds up to "I wasn't ready." I planned, at the time, to do distance education to finish high school, but I let a series of events derail me. The result has been a crisis in terms of how I see myself.
Everytime I fail to follow through, I hurt myself. You know? I become my own worst enemy, and a self-fulfilling prophecy. I've decided it's time to turn the train around and go back to St. Louis, deal with all the reasons I thought it wasn't working for me, and finish. If I settle for distance education, I'm going to feel like I've 'settled' for less than I'm capable of. If I settle for a GED, same thing. I want to finish what my life circumstances at the time I was in high school prevented me from finishing. I want to take those years back in a symbolic way.
I think this is important. I think I'm really getting it, and I think I'm tackling my continued failure to follow through in a healthy way. With a pinch of humour, and a dash of determination. With the full awareness that I can do it.
I have to take academic math. There's no way around it. I thought applied would be enough, but psych requires academic math, so that's that. The bright side is that the students at St. Louis who are doing academic math are probably going to me more serious than those doing applied math, so while the course itself will be more challenging, the environment will be less so.
Also, I can write essays. The final essay in grade 10 academic English scared the bejesus out of me. I was terrified to even try. Which is a large part (no matter what else I told myself) of my decision to drop out. I dropped out because I was yellabellied. I dropped out because I was scared to discover that I really couldn't do it. I preferred, at the time, to live in ignorance of what I'm actually capable of rather than challenge myself and find out the truth.
The truth is probably this: I'm perfectly capable of doing it. Maybe not perfectly but well enough to get the required 80% in the class. So fuck it. Fuck my self-doubt. Fuck my abject terror. It's time for courage. It's time for being shit scared and doing it anyway.
My self-actualization process. Let me show you it.
Sometimes Moving Forward Means...
Feb 28, 2009
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5 comments:
February 28, 2009 5:00 PM
You go, girl! Yay for you!!
February 28, 2009 9:04 PM
Good for you!!
Now stop being so hard on yourself and enjoy the process.
{{hug}}
February 28, 2009 9:56 PM
Woman, I never would have pegged you for less than 4+ years of college.
DAMN right you can do it! likely be in the top 3 percentile when you do, too.
[ FYI, I dropped out. Got a GED. Went to college for 2 years many, many moons later. You KNOW what you KNOW. Yeah, you can more than do this!]
March 1, 2009 1:53 AM
Wow - grit & guts, woman! Like Cygnus, you come across 'educated!'
My son (now 35) was home schooled after spending grade school in private alternative schools, & hating the repetitive stuff (& a streak of not finishing homework) . . . when he needed a GED for his apprenticeship, he got it in a few weeks! (early 20s). He was an appren. for 5 years, & finished with a degree (distance) from Penn State, & was the youngest 'sprinkler fitter' (fire safety systems) trained to do 'service' troubleshooting!
I always 'knew' he could do the GED if he needed to - & feel the same about you - you can do what you need to!!
& the MSW feels like a great direction for you!
Many blessings on your path, wherever it flows
hugs
March 1, 2009 10:44 AM
Making the decision to do it is three quarters there; actually doing it and you are there 100%.
Congratulations and lots of luck! ... :0)
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