Some Reflections

Transition is tough. Sometimes easier, sometimes harder. The willingness to admit that you’re going through transition and focus on The Lord throughout is kinda the only way to do it well.

This last semester was tough, possibly the toughest I’ve had in a lot of ways. I learned what it’s like to be outside of a formal education, and how much it SUCKS. When you’re in school, it’s okay to forget things, ‘cause you’re replacing it with knowledge from your next classes. When you go without a formal education, even independent study, you feel trapped. Your knowledge is leaving and you want to take hold of it, to study or do something else to remedy the problem, but it’s like grasping at water as it’s pouring through your hands.

After the stress of studying for and taking the MCAT, I didn’t wanna learn things for awhile. MCAT prep was replaced with a mission trip to South America, which was immediately followed by working at a neurologist’s office, which has become a love/hate ordeal. The commute is awful (at least three hours of my day is given to it), but the work is fulfilling, and I occasionally get to shadow the doctor, which makes it worthwhile. Still, I was only able to really enjoy it when I was working three days a week rather than five. Soon I will change back to part time, and after a little longer, I will likely be leaving all of it to backpack through Europe.

Some developments since I graduated include my eye twitches. My right upper eyelid began twitching from stress when I was studying for the MCAT. Now it is easily triggered. Another development was my acceptance into a medical school. I hope to be accepted into more, but I don’t find that out for a month.

The most difficult thing in all of it has been the pretty immediate switch from having friends that I hang out with all the time to never seeing them except when I visit Arkansas. I managed to find friends at JBU that made me not only feel happier by being around them, but also better as a human. This is uncommon. Some of my old friends make me feel worse when I’m around them. I know that leaving friends behind is kinda the nature of a lot of my life, that I keep moving on in order to grow, but it hasn’t gotten any easier. As I write this, I have just finished saying a lot of goodbyes to my newly-graduated friends, some of whom I don’t know whether I’ll see even within the next year (which effectively means that I probably won’t see them for another three to five years, if not longer). This has been the least stressful time in a long while, just sitting in the local coffee shop and writing, while also not having to be back in Texas until Monday evening (and that’s only for a wine pairing dinner). Not planning too much, not having plans at all. It just sounds ideal. Like a sneak-peek of my time in Europe.

My hope is that like many fall semesters, this one will be followed by a more pleasant spring. Ideally, I should be sad to leave my current world behind to travel. Lately, I’ve been wanting it as an escape in addition to an opportunity to better myself. The idea of an escape is kinda foolish to me, since I should be loving every aspect of everything I’m doing.