Happy Labor Day Weekend!  To celebrate, let’s do absolutely nothing!

I finished my first week of Statistics homework/projects yesterday.  (Yes, you may have my autograph!) That means that today, the last day I can use the pool at my condo complex, will be filled with nothing but chlorine, sun, people, water, and relaxation.  Not a speck of guilt, though.  I powered through a long and tedious day yesterday with a pretty decent sized headache to get ‘er done.  I think I may have even convinced myself that Stats is, after all, mildly interesting.

The adjustment to school has been, I won’t lie, a bigger challenge than I’d anticipated.  It reminds me of when I started nursing school at the local community college.  “It’s the community college!  How hard can this be?” I scoffed to myself (Yes, I was a big, arrogant jerk back then.  Now I’m usually just a kinda-humble jerk from time to time).  HAHAHAHAHA!  Nursing school is awful.  Particularly when you’re single, have two little kids at home, and are also working as a server.  It kicked me in the ass as life does.  It’s okay.  I obviously needed that ass kicking.

So the Statistics isn’t, so far, as awful as I’d imagined; however, getting used to this online classroom is.  There are two feelings I hate more than anything else in the world:  feeling abandoned/rejected, and feeling stupid.  I got hit with the former fairly recently and this class has punched me square in the jaw with the latter.  The urge to give in/give up/throw in the towel has been strong.  The urge to throw the computer across the room has also been strong.  Luckily, I was born with a more than adequate supply of stubbornness that has seen me through.

The other day, a friend told me, “I admire the fire you have in your belly.  Your drive is impressive.”  I chuckled to myself and responded, “It’s not so much a fire in my belly as it is a desire to maintain food and shelter for my girls.” Ain’t that the truth?

 

“One of the greatest myths in the world—and the phrase ‘greatest myths’ is just a fancy way of saying ‘big fat lies’—is that troublesome things get less and less troublesome if you do them more and more.  The truth is that troublesome things tend to remain troublesome no matter how many times you do them, and that you should avoid doing them unless they are absolutely urgent.” – Lemony Snicket

 

If you’ve been an adult for any length of time, you know that certain things never get easier:  there are always bills to pay, relationships to navigate, kids to worry about, jobs to maintain, and the list goes on.  The secret to adulthood is just to keep going.  If life has taught me anything, it’s that perseverance is the thread that holds it all together.  Do I enjoy online classrooms?  I do not.  Do I enjoy waking up most days at 4:40am?  I do not.  Do I enjoy going to Target and then the grocery store and then the home improvement store and getting my oil changed and schlepping kids all over creation on my days off?  I do not.  But I keep doing those things—not because there is one damn special or unique thing about me but because life requires that I do so.  And, in true Pollyanna/psych nurse fashion, I generally try to make the best of it (most times that means I drag my girls along and we bond in the toothpaste aisle).

As I get older and some things fall off the “to do” list, other items inevitably replace them.  I’m no longer having to scramble for babysitters or re-certify for food stamps/public assistance, but I have to figure out life insurance.  And manage migraines.  And go to school.  And deal with an aging father.  And have sex talks with teenage daughters.  And eat right and exercise?! (That one really pisses this chip-dip loving girl off.)

Up until very recently, I kept telling myself, “This is going to get easier, Jen.  It will.  I promise.”  But will it?  Or will the difficulties (challenges!) just continue to morph into different difficulties (challenges!)?

When it comes to my therapy and my tendency toward getting swallowed up and overwhelmed (possibly suicidal) by uncomfortable emotions, my therapist has told me two things:  (1) Core beliefs and emotional reactions are very, very, very difficult to eradicate, and (2) Core beliefs and emotional reactions can be tempered over time and become less frequent and less intense.

That’s kind of like life, in general.  The “to do” lists will always be there.  But, hopefully, as I learn to adult better and better, it’ll be more manageable.  Less overwhelming.

But today … THE POOL.  Right after I pay these bills.