When I embarked on this mid-life crisis madcap
comedy movie return to school adventure last fall, I had a general idea
that I would finish in five years. I had 11 pre-requisite classes to take
before the three-year graduate degree, and it seemed… possible to do them in
two years? Hard, but manageable, especially if I didn’t plan to have a life
outside of community college, and didn’t mind being in summer school all the
way through (the DPT includes summer school), and possibly a winter session or
two.
And then, of course, life started happening, and more
specifically, arthritic hip raised its ugly head (of the femur! Yuk yuk. Nerd
joke). Hip replacement surgery was no longer a far-off possibility, but a right
now necessity. Still, I persisted. I sat down with my pre-req list and worked
out a whole strategy that would allow me to get everything done and enroll in
the fall of 2013. Lest you think the schedule I created was a leisurely
educational stroll, I present it to you in haiku form:
Summer session – hip replaced –
Labor Day? Who the
Fuck are you kidding?
(Maybe not the best haiku, and maybe doesn’t even convey the
reality of what I was planning on doing to myself, so instead I present to you
my leisurely educational stroll in calendar form:)
Summer 2012 – Human Biology / test into Pre-calculus
August 2012 – Hip replacement class*
Fall 2012 – Pre-calculus / Anatomy / take GRE
Winter 2012 – Statistics / apply to grad schools
Spring 2013 – Physics/ Physiology
Summer 2013 – Physics
Fall 2013 DPT begins
*not a class
Looking at this list gives me hives. Unnecessary Hives, which
is also the name of my autobiography. Some time last week, between interviewing
hip surgeons and studying for my organic chemistry exam, I realized that there
was no actual reason why I HAD to finish in five. My stubborn attachment to the
five-year plan was a) Not Very Yogic, though I feel like often lately I’m Not
Very Yogic (and while we’re on the topic, that seems a more likely
autobiography title) and b) a by-product of a trick I constantly play on myself
to get things done, called “Tell Everybody You Are Doing Something And Then You
Have To Do It.”
At my brother’s wedding in Palm Springs four years ago, when
I was still living in New York but feeling more and more like I could leave, I
went around the entire reception telling people that I was moving to LA (though
apparently I did not tell my mom, who was surprised to learn it from a cousin
later that night). The desire not to go back on my words propelled me more
rapidly towards a destination I would have reached eventually – but as I left
the reception, casually flinging the words “See you next year!” to the
Angelinos present (my future friends!) my fate was writ in cement.
In the same way, starting this blog with the pronouncement
that I would be in school for five years made it, in my mind, an unchangeable
truth. In addition, and you can add this to the Not Very Yogic column: I am
terrifically impatient when I want something. I had wrapped my head around five
years’ worth of school: how old I would be when I got out (don’t ask), what
year it would be, what great career shifts would finally come to fruition. An
additional year seemed truly unbearable, and sacrificing my free time and
sanity seemed the best solution. I know that sounds ridiculous, and yet it felt
violently true.
But letting go of that self-induced stressor (because that’s
all it was) and giving myself room to breathe (what a concept, Not Very Yogic
lady) and actually enjoy my life for the next few years (again, who knew that
was an option) has created space for all kinds of things I was going to give up
in the name of my set in stone plans. Like travel! And writing more! And
hanging out with other people! And cadaver dissection! (It’s a form of hanging
out with other people.) And how about this concept: giving myself adequate time
to recover from having a freaking hip replaced.
So there it is. I’m taking the slightly longer road not yet
traveled. More importantly: I’m not freaking out about it. Maybe I’m a Little
More Yogic than I thought.
