Here I am at EMU studying my ass off.
For those of you who don't know, I'm taking 18 credits, including two psych classes and four social work classes. All of these things are great. I'm learning a lot, but there's some intense reading that I have to do, and all of these assignments and quizzes that are crowding my schedule as I start the second half of the second week.
I'm wondering if I can do it.
New York took a lot out of me. I made great friends, but I almost feel like I burned out. There was too much to think about, too much to do, and I'm not a work-a-holic, nor was I used to that lifestyle, and it's been a struggle for me to be in three different places during August. But now I'm back at EMU, and I'm challenged by my capacity to study, to meet professor's expectations. I don't want to fail. I feel like I'm approaching failure with every step, that each day in class I come, not knowing if I forgot some reading or assignment.
I feel like I'm unprepared to handle the requirements that are before me. I hold high expectations for myself.
I should be able to handle eighteen credits and Jazz Ensemble. But I didn't think that upper level classes would make me feel like I wasn't every finished.
I should be able to feel adequate about commuting and being social enough at school. But I always feel the pressure of being with people and not studying, and wondering if it's necessary to study then.
I should be able to walk around with the confidence I carried with me. But I lost that confidence this summer. It slipped out of my fist.
I should feel like music is something that I can build a career with. But where is the door of opportunity swinging open? Who is going to hear one song that I've written and say, "Wow. That girl needs to record with my company," and sweep me off my feet to a wondrous weighted eighty-eight key keyboard and tell me to write my story until those keys. Who wants to hear that story? Am I new, fresh, and relevant?
Should I still pursue music?
My dear friend Christa told me that I could do both school/Social work and music. But I don't know if I can. I'm driven by the thought that I cannot serve two masters.
Am I serving two masters?
And where am I letting God into all this?
Am I serving three masters?
All I feel is that I cannot figure out who I am because I lost part of who I am when I couldn't feel at home in a place where I was staying. I lost part of what I strived to be when I had to put a face on for fear or angering or disappointing people.
What is the good of reading something if I don't even take it in the first time, or the second time?
I'm brought back to humanity and humility when I taste the bitter taste, or is it the blood, of failure. It takes pieces of me.
The only person that I need to worry about disappointing is. . . is there anyone?
I can only learn from what I am incapable of.
What is failure? a lack of success. Who defines success?
When someone pulls the chair out from under my weak routine and lands me on my butt, again, here I am. Surprised, and tears pour out like they have been waiting to, but I hadn't recognized. These tears come when something dear to me is adjusted. That's all is takes. And I've been slightly ruptured, like the blisters I was nervously popping on my feet, as tears rolled down my face, listening to Zach tell me to ride it out and if I fail, at least I will know how not to do it next time.
I must be adjusting
Because I'm scattered like leaves falling
Down, pitter patter like rain.
I'm dancing spinning round and round
Faster, does the time slow
Enough to not stumble out of my mind?
Is school too hard for me right now?
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