Back to blogging. As always, I manage to be mysteriously absent around the holidays, I can't really seem to help it.
Thanksgiving dinners (both times!) were absolutely lovely. That week, I also got a second job working at a pizza place, for some extra cash since my student loan payments are simply put: outrageous. So I've been pretty busy with end of the semester work, christmas shopping, loads of christmas baking (pumpkin bread, apple sauce cake, cookies and more!)and working about 60+ hours a week. I did manage to get home to visit with my parents for a little bit, which was wonderful. I was beginning to get very homesick so it was nice to have some time to relax and be with my family.
And now it's a new year. Sadly, I am not feeling especially inspired as of late. After investing nearly 3 years of my life, thousands of dollars, and who even knows how many hours and trees I've killed, I was asked to leave my master's program. I've had a couple days to try to come to terms with this, and to be honest, it's not going so well. I'm absolutely crushed. I'm 50k deep in student loan debt, and I've got not a damn thing to show for it. Even in the highly unlikely event that I could get into a different program now, I don't have the money or the spare time to try this all over again. And possibly fail. Again. Not even remotely the least of my problems is that at some point I have to tell my family. After every dumb decision I've made the past few years, some point in the very near future, I have to call home and relive one of the very worst experiences of my entire life and know that I have disappointed them again, that they may never feel proud of me or brag about me to their friends ever again. As worthless and stupid as I feel right now, that is the very worst of it. Worse than any of the other feelings is that I don't have the courage to own this and I don't know how I can ever face my family again.
After leaving the program coordinators office that day, I went to the dept chair. He has been my only ally in the program and he tried to offer me some words of wisdom. Move on, he said. This wasn't the program for you. You need to take the time to figure out what you really want. Find a different program, one that you ARE really passionate about, one that can help you grow into a career because keeping you here and letting you struggle in this one isn't doing you any favors. Try a clinical program with a practicum instead of thesis and work with people instead of numbers. But you have to get past today first. This part of your life is over, so keep walking.
And I guess he is right. This program wasn't working for me. I was miserable the entire time, I was never able to find a mentor, or even fit in with my classmates. So all in all, I guess my point is big changes are coming for me. And maybe I wasn't ready for them, but they were ready for me. Close friends keep telling me that this is a great opportunity, that I stopped loving psychology a long time ago, and now I have the chance to shed that skin and start over. It's tough for me to see things that way, but I don't have much of a choice. This part in my life is done, and it's time to keep walking.
