The difference, these days, is that I am learning for a specific purpose. I am finally using my energy toward earning a degree to officially use my experience and knowledge in oncology.
I carry the souls I've lost. They walk with me, hold my heart, and I lean on them when I have difficulty believing in myself. I picture their faces. I cry sometimes because I wish I could live this life with them, but I know their lights exist somewhere and they're never far away. It's still sad though. The grief never leaves me. It shifts, it looks different depending on the day, but it's always there.
I absolutely did not believe I was capable of grad school. I struggle with words immensely; I can't get my brain and mouth to work together to pronounce the words I see on a screen or on a page. It's frustrating as hell. And the fatigue is real. Yet I freaking LOVE it. I haven't been this cognitively challenged in years. Yes, I have been researching brain tumor content for almost 15 years, I've learned and relearned, but this is a firehose of information, and it's not on my timeline. The pressure, the rush of the focus, the exhaustion, the joy of every second of this process, it's beautiful!
The tricks I've learned navigating grad school are wild. I use two computers at once, one for the digital textbook and the other for the paper I am inevitably writing, not to mention the mess of tabs I flit back and forth to. Then, I use my phone to dictate a word, trying to spell or verify a definition. Half the time, I find that I've created a word, usually a Frankenstein of letters, that has no intelligible meaning. I often find myself starting my day at 7:00 am, barely taking breaks until I look up, and it is 9:00 pm, and I have forgotten to eat anything or move my body. But learning is so fun! The content, the wonder, the awe, I slurp it up.
As I head into this next quarter, or whatever section of school this is, I'm excited, nervous, curious, and I'm all in.
This is the gift I give myself.
