I started thinking the other day about the many journeys I've taken in my life. So many of them have been solitary journeys. Some of them have been that way because they've involved me directly; they were the things I had no choice but to experience alone. For instance, nobody else can bear an illness in your stead; you have no choice but to fight it, take the meds at the right times and so on, and no one can do that but you.
But other journeys I've taken have been solitary because I decided to take them, and no one else could understand them. These journeys didn't fit in with the too-practical mindset of those around me. Why, for example, would you want to follow four years of college with four more years of college? Why don't you want to go out and be in the real world? Or why would you want to quit eating meat? Why would you want to be one of them vegetarians? Why would you spend years writing a book about an obscure subject that only a handful of people will ever read, if that many?
Over my lifetime, there have been so many different opportunities for these journeys to go off the rails. Several times, they've come close. I remember sitting in the office of one of my professors during my first semester in graduate school, spilling my guts to him, telling him I felt I'd bit off more than I could chew. Two years later, after I'd begun work in the doctoral program, those feelings came back. What was I doing in a doctoral program, for crying out loud?
Somehow, I hung in there. I don't know why. I never have been sure if it's determination, a desire to prove everyone around me wrong, or if it's just being too stubborn and/or too stupid to be as scared as I should be. (Part of me says I should realize I'm a lot better than I let myself believe, that I'm a lot more gifted than I let myself realize, but I fear the folly that can come with believing your own PR.)
Sometimes I hear stories of people who set out on journeys or try to accomplish great things, but don't complete them. Sometimes they run out of resources. Sometimes they can't make the journey by themselves. Sometimes they can't take the comments of those who don't see the point, or who think it's more fun to trash someone else's aspirations than accomplish something themselves. Sometimes other things come along. Sometimes the reasons they abandon their hopes are happy reasons, and new worlds open. More frequently, they just set the dream aside and drive off. Every once in a while, it ends tragically. It's not just in graduate school circles, mind you, where the stories are endless of those who nailed the coursework but could never complete the dissertation. It could be anything. It could be someone battling an illness or an addiction, or trying to save a business, or struggling mightily to preserve a historic building, or...well, you can fill in the blank with any difficult battle in which the statistics aren't necessarily your friend. The instance doesn't matter, for the situation is universal.
Yet, here I am. I'm not the smartest, or the bravest, or the most well-equipped mariner on the high seas of this life. I've been through so much, and I've done things I never realized I had the ability to do. Along the way, I had a welcome assist or two. Sometimes I wondered if I'd make it, but, for some reason, I had faith everything would somehow work out.
There's nothing special about me. So what set me apart? Why is it that, when my back's to the wall, when others would give up, I cuss, crack a joke, and work the problem? Why would I never let myself give up? Why is it, like the weeds that keep popping up in the sidewalk, I just keep going when other folks try to stop me? Why do I bounce back up? Why am I like the ram trying to punch the hole in the billion-kilowatt dam? Why, when I was thinking of quitting the doctoral program, did I keep reminding myself that my slot in the program came at the expense of another applicant? Why, even when I'd been given my free agency at my first teaching job, did I get a feeling it would all work out? Why, when I spent that summer with my new close personal friend the oncologist, did I never doubt I'd lick cancer?
I don't know. The only answer I can give is that, somehow, grace from above saw me through. I've often attributed those moments when I've avoided disaster to the belief that "the Lord looks out for children, drunks and me." But, seriously, that's the only thing I can attribute it all to. Someone up there has to have been loving me all these years, even in spite of all the things I've brought on myself. Even in the times when I've realized that "thy sea is so great, and my boat is so small." Someone else had to have had a hand on the wheel, too. I couldn't have steered the ship alone.
I've been through so much. But, here I am. My cancer's been gone a decade. I sped through my doctoral work and knocked out my dissertation in no time. I have a great job and wonderful colleagues. I'm married to someone wonderful, and we live in a neat house in the middle of nowhere. I did all these things without really thinking much about them. And I'm not sure how I could have done it by myself. (I don't believe I did it by myself, really.)
There's so much for which I'm grateful. But I'm sobered when I think of those who didn't make it. Some of them were smarter than me, had more ability, were just plain better people, deserved what I have a lot more than I did. I'm just some wise-cracking girl from the sticks.
Why did the odds break my way, and not theirs?
Perhaps it's not for me to know. Perhaps, instead, I should focus on never taking for granted anything in my life.
But other journeys I've taken have been solitary because I decided to take them, and no one else could understand them. These journeys didn't fit in with the too-practical mindset of those around me. Why, for example, would you want to follow four years of college with four more years of college? Why don't you want to go out and be in the real world? Or why would you want to quit eating meat? Why would you want to be one of them vegetarians? Why would you spend years writing a book about an obscure subject that only a handful of people will ever read, if that many?
Over my lifetime, there have been so many different opportunities for these journeys to go off the rails. Several times, they've come close. I remember sitting in the office of one of my professors during my first semester in graduate school, spilling my guts to him, telling him I felt I'd bit off more than I could chew. Two years later, after I'd begun work in the doctoral program, those feelings came back. What was I doing in a doctoral program, for crying out loud?
Somehow, I hung in there. I don't know why. I never have been sure if it's determination, a desire to prove everyone around me wrong, or if it's just being too stubborn and/or too stupid to be as scared as I should be. (Part of me says I should realize I'm a lot better than I let myself believe, that I'm a lot more gifted than I let myself realize, but I fear the folly that can come with believing your own PR.)
Sometimes I hear stories of people who set out on journeys or try to accomplish great things, but don't complete them. Sometimes they run out of resources. Sometimes they can't make the journey by themselves. Sometimes they can't take the comments of those who don't see the point, or who think it's more fun to trash someone else's aspirations than accomplish something themselves. Sometimes other things come along. Sometimes the reasons they abandon their hopes are happy reasons, and new worlds open. More frequently, they just set the dream aside and drive off. Every once in a while, it ends tragically. It's not just in graduate school circles, mind you, where the stories are endless of those who nailed the coursework but could never complete the dissertation. It could be anything. It could be someone battling an illness or an addiction, or trying to save a business, or struggling mightily to preserve a historic building, or...well, you can fill in the blank with any difficult battle in which the statistics aren't necessarily your friend. The instance doesn't matter, for the situation is universal.
Yet, here I am. I'm not the smartest, or the bravest, or the most well-equipped mariner on the high seas of this life. I've been through so much, and I've done things I never realized I had the ability to do. Along the way, I had a welcome assist or two. Sometimes I wondered if I'd make it, but, for some reason, I had faith everything would somehow work out.
There's nothing special about me. So what set me apart? Why is it that, when my back's to the wall, when others would give up, I cuss, crack a joke, and work the problem? Why would I never let myself give up? Why is it, like the weeds that keep popping up in the sidewalk, I just keep going when other folks try to stop me? Why do I bounce back up? Why am I like the ram trying to punch the hole in the billion-kilowatt dam? Why, when I was thinking of quitting the doctoral program, did I keep reminding myself that my slot in the program came at the expense of another applicant? Why, even when I'd been given my free agency at my first teaching job, did I get a feeling it would all work out? Why, when I spent that summer with my new close personal friend the oncologist, did I never doubt I'd lick cancer?
I don't know. The only answer I can give is that, somehow, grace from above saw me through. I've often attributed those moments when I've avoided disaster to the belief that "the Lord looks out for children, drunks and me." But, seriously, that's the only thing I can attribute it all to. Someone up there has to have been loving me all these years, even in spite of all the things I've brought on myself. Even in the times when I've realized that "thy sea is so great, and my boat is so small." Someone else had to have had a hand on the wheel, too. I couldn't have steered the ship alone.
I've been through so much. But, here I am. My cancer's been gone a decade. I sped through my doctoral work and knocked out my dissertation in no time. I have a great job and wonderful colleagues. I'm married to someone wonderful, and we live in a neat house in the middle of nowhere. I did all these things without really thinking much about them. And I'm not sure how I could have done it by myself. (I don't believe I did it by myself, really.)
There's so much for which I'm grateful. But I'm sobered when I think of those who didn't make it. Some of them were smarter than me, had more ability, were just plain better people, deserved what I have a lot more than I did. I'm just some wise-cracking girl from the sticks.
Why did the odds break my way, and not theirs?
Perhaps it's not for me to know. Perhaps, instead, I should focus on never taking for granted anything in my life.
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