For All This Life

I've been on this earth twenty-two years. In those subsequent years, the toughest things I've had to do have been walking away from a great relationship with a wonderful person because I was going away to college, getting stuck in an airport for a single night due to a sudden monsoon in Philadelphia, having unexplained belly pain resulting in surgery my first semester of college, leaving my mother in an airport twice, only this time it was her that was leaving and me that was staying (not that it helped), calling my mother a few weeks later to tell her I wasn't coming home and didn't know when I could even think about getting on a plane and getting across the Atlantic, and the following five days of living in the Virgin Atlantic terminal at Heathrow Airport.

It's a toss up of whether all of the previous - collectively - trumps the past four months.

It's been difficult. That could be the understatement of 2011, truthfully, if sitting in my professor's office and, after going over the last exam and talking about where to go from there, fighting on three separate occasions not to cry is any indication. I've done really well since the first month of the semester to not let the center of my brain hijack the rest of it, which is the sort of scientific way of saying I haven't let myself panic as badly as I used to. It's probably not good for my heart, either, the amount of caffeine I ingest on a regular basis.

I don't want to use the word overwhelmed but that's really what it boils down to. Between what's going on up here - no need to insert the laundry list of stuff as that's already been done - and what's going on at home, it's difficult to get the distance required. 45 miles doesn't feel like 45 miles. Even if it were 3,000 I don't think it would work. Sometimes there's just not enough space on the planet to get the distance that feel necessary.

It's also difficult to not let the distance you need hurt the people who need you.

Yeah, that's one I'm still trying to wrap my head around and there are days when I'm successful and days when, well, I'm a giant fail at it. Lately, it seems that my failure days outnumber my non-failure days. It's a struggle, more often than not, to find my motivation and my Focus (slippery little bastard), and to do all I need to do when the only thing I really want to do is curl up in my amazingly comfortable dorm bed and block out the outside world and sleep for a solid eight hours. My beloved sister insists I can sleep when I'm dead, which I think has taken root in the back of my head because it's ten past midnight and I'm working on homework. I'm hoping - more or less planning, actually - to be in bed by three. Which means I have some things to get done right the hell now.

The bright side is that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. There's the fact that spring semester is going to be glorious. There's also the fact that I will be returning to Wales two weeks after graduation for three weeks. Yup, I was accepted into the summer program, and will be returning to a place that grew to be a second (third, maybe?) home.

But there's a lot to do between now and then. A lot to do. Still, there are days when you sit there, think, get a little lost in your head and wonder can I do this? Am I good enough to do this? Have I gotten in over my head? The next thought you think is the true kicker.

Is it really worth it?

There are days when I go cross-eyed looking at my own reflection in the mirror really wondering if the ends justify the means. I've been assured by numerous people they do indeed, but here, right here in this hot as hell corner room, you wonder. You really, really wonder.

Sitting here introspecting isn't getting my lesson plans done. And you know how much I love those damn things.