I am sitting in a coffee shop in Decatur, and an elderly man I was talking to in line just bought my cup of coffee for me before smiling and walking out the door. I smile at this small act of kindness - I feel that God has been especially kind to me the last two days, to make up for the terrible and down week I've been feeling like I've had.
In truth, I'm really discouraged. I've been exceedingly discouraged, and wasn't sure how to express that on my last blog post. I feel ashamed, actually, because I almost feel as though, at 20, I have more pressure on me to be smart and pass things, to prove that I am good enough to be in Grad School. But...I feel as though I am drowning in PT school. I am trying my hardest, but I feel as though I'm learning the muscles slower than everyone, I got my first 80 in 7 years on a paper (in case you didn't know.... I kind of consider writing my forte...) and I'm not getting stellar grades on my quizzes. Goniometry sounds kind of like an STD (teach me how to Goni!), and the grades of Manual Muscle Testing seem so subjective that I don't know what to assign them to. 3? 2+? 4-? Seriously?
Actually, the only things I really seem to "get" are pharmacology and everything Diabetes related which, thank God, is actually quite a lot. I'm pretty good at skin too, but everything on the quizzes seems to be about planes of motion and is it a conVEX on a conCAVE or the opposite way around. P.S., subscapularis inserts on the crest of the lesser tubercle of the humerus, not the inferior facet of the greater tubercle, and yes, there is a difference, because I got it wrong on the god**** anatomy quiz that I spent half the night studying for.
So now that I've finished speaking what sounds like mumbo jumbo to any of my non-PT friends, what here is my point? Well, ladies and gentleman, I am very much human and my emotions have run wild the last few days. Between my personal life and quizzes and worrying about non being smart enough for PT school, Friday I walked out in the hallway after anatomy and just started bawling. Everyone treated me really nicely for the rest of the day and my friend Robert sat me down for what actually turned out to be a very helpful coming-to-Jesus talk, but it was rough, and so Friday evening my friend Chelsea and I escaped to Little Five Points where I attempted to nurse the fragile pieces of my self efficacy back to functional level. I've felt more down than I have in a while, and my blood sugar has been pretty wonky the last 4 days, too, higher than I want it to be again - I'm chalking it up to stress, though really I don't know why I've been eating breakfast and coming back at 250 and then 327 even after bolusing for a protein shake. Breakfast is usually my worst time of day blood sugar wise, and I got so angry Friday about my sugars that I rage bolused (give myself x amount of insulin just to bring it down ---> leads to subsequent string of lows) that I was low for the rest of the afternoon and had a mini breakdown in applied anatomy again after my third low and feeling as though my brain was sufficiently frazzled. Saturday, despite having a hectic day of 4 parties, helped get my mind off things, and getting to "sleep in" until 8:30 today was really swell, too. My roommate Hans and I chatted over the kitchen counter a little and I felt brighter about things again.
And so, now, I'm sitting in the coffee shop --- hoping I won't be down again for a while, and doing all I can to take it easy and not feel overwhelmed. I feel old. I feel like an outsider to my own life sometimes. All my life, I've been me. And by "me" I mean I feel as though I am not quite genuine enough to be a stellar-ly sweet person, but not quite genius enough to be smart enough to fit in with that crowd, either. I'm not blessed with incredible social skills, even, I'm just an introvert that has managed a business so long that I can mimic extroverted-ness enough to seem like I know what I am doing. I like to study a little but too much, I am kind of nerdy, I listen to weird electronic music (and quite frankly, everything else), I sing off-key, my definition of a good book usually ranges from fiction to intense political theory, and I'm not even old enough to drink. I am a 20 year old thrown into the life of someone much older, feeling too old to connect with most people my age but too young for most people to take me seriously. Most of my friends are 24/25 because that's just who I connect with, but I'm still stuck in the awkward "am I an adult or teen" phase. The answer is I am very much an adult, but at the same time I feel as though I missed out on a lot of my teen years, albeit voluntarily. I just never quite fit in to the teen years either, so I let those skim by.
Ooh, I don't know quite what I am supposed to be, in short. I am an old soul, and I guess I have to embrace this weird, slightly outsider life that I have been given. Observe, not quite be a part of, the world, except for the few souls I manage to find a genuine connection with, and I am so thankful for them.
As I approach my 21st birthday, I will look back and I think that I will be pleased with how far I've come, but there are still a lot of questions left unanswered that I have yet to discover. That's what makes life a journey, no?
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