I think I've hit a proverbial wall...

I knew that when I started this journey that I would be tested.  I knew that when I uprooted my life and moved 1500 miles away, it would be difficult to start anew and I knew this experience would at times bend me so far that I would feel like I wanted to break.  So then why is it so frustrating when I knew that all of this would happen?

When I left Western, one of my colleagues said that the first year of grad school they all tell you that you know nothing, and then in the second year they all tell you that you are brilliant....why does this feel so far away from the truth.  I feel like every semester I get under my belt, the worse I feel about my abilities as a student and the more I question my decision to "drop my life" and "try something new to better myself."  I am definitely not one to admit my intelligence, since I never really think I am the smartest person in the classroom, but I feel like for classmates its so easy....so easy to think beyond the box and develop evocative questions and comments that push the conversation forward and essentially move the discipline to another level.  Why am I not like them?

I know most people are thinking, "oh come on now, you are trying your best!"...but right now, the best isn't what is working for me.  I read, I write, I read some more, and I try to participate with the knowledge and experience I have....yet it all seems to be judged (in grades and comments) as not sufficient...makes me think, why did I decide to do this?  Why did I decide to voluntarily subject myself to criticism for projects, and papers, and plans of study.....why?

So yes, this is a venting and negative session.  A time, where I find myself figuratively hitting my head against a wall that I can't seem to break through.  I do this because I don't want to give up, and I do this because I want to prove that I can do this...despite what I feel like right now, right this instance.  But its a huge wall, that feels thick ,and while I hope that this feeling will pass, I don't know if it will....why do I always second guess my decisions regardless of them....why can I not feel confident in my choices regardless of what people think?  Why can I not be happy with what this choice has done for me....why am I being so negative recently?

Its been a rough couple of weeks, with eye opening realizations in a very realistic fashion.  I guess one of the benefits of this blog is the ability to get it "out" of me and onto something else where I can read and re-read it to eventually make sense of my own emotions.  We are studying embodied writing, where the writer incorporates analysis and layers accounts of what is actually happening in their own heads into the article...where the reader literally realizes what they are trying to say while they write on the page.  I know that I am not that good, but maybe, after some serious thought I too can look at this and analyze where I am in my journey and maybe even where I see myself going.  Gosh, I just wish that I knew where I was going and that it was going to be ok, that despite all the uncertainty and the rejection that I have felt recently for education that there is a light at the end of the tunnel....i think this is called growing pains....i don't know how else to label it...no scholarly language here....

Enough pessimism for now...try to look for the good, for the silver lining.  Time to try to refocus as the semester isn't over and we still got three of the hardest weeks ahead of me.  Time to re-frame my thoughts and come up with realistic expectations and STOP comparing myself to others...this is my journey....and no one else's.....leave it alone Dale....let the pieces fall where they land....don't allow yourself to be judged....breathe, cuz its gotta be alright...I got another year of this ish.....