It has been a year and a half since I last wrote. It has been a year of ups and downs. Times I want to remember and times I wish I can honestly forget. I wrote last right after I graduated from college. Things were looking good for me. I had my grad school applications in, I was living with my best friend, I had a job, and I had plans for the future. I was excited to continue on with my life post undergrad. Fast forward two months and I got my first rejection letter from BYU, the school I wanted to go to above all others for my Victorian Literature grad program. Go forward another two months and I got rejection letters from 4 more schools. From February through about September I was in and out of depression trying to figure out my life and where I would go from there (hence why I didn't write during that time). I'm writing all this because I have finally come to a peaceful time in my life where I am happy being me.
For over a year I didn't even want to think about grad school. I had the mentality that I could not handle the rejections again. I literally was sick for about 4 months solid because of the stress of trying to answer the "What now?" question, and I did not want to get my hopes up again just to get them
crushed pulverized ("crushed" wasn't a strong enough word for how I felt during that time). It has only been within the past few months that I have really started to think about trying again. I have never been the type to quit. When I had major knee surgery I lost all my muscle mass in my left leg and it messed up not only my times in swimming, but my technique. Instead of giving up, I worked harder than I had ever done before. It took me three years to get back to where I had been. When I was looked down upon because of my dyslexia, I would hold my head high and proved the nay-sayers wrong. I had a swim coach once that would have us jump into the pool right before a muscle-tearing, lung-bursting, agony-inducing, turn blue in the face with tears streaming down set and yell, "I LOVE A CHALLENGE!" I have never lied so blatantly as I did whenever we had to do that, but in all honestly I never backed down from a challenge. It's just who I am. So when I heard a song by He Is We last summer with the lyrics, "I'm going to open my mind to all these new found exciting possibilities. I'm making all my own plans. Throw all my old ones away. Gotta grow up be someone. Draw a map, find a path, take a breath, and run." Those were the words I needed at that particular time in my life.
After that, I made up my mind that I was going to accept my life the way it was and move on. I wasn't going to dwell on what I didn't accomplish and instead set out to achieve new goals. Have I achieved them yet? No. But I haven't given up. I have gotten a new GRE study guide (bleh), and hopefully will take the test later this summer. I want to at least get that done and figure out the next step later.
Well, that is the update on my life. I figured I needed to explain why the absence. One of my resolutions is to start blogging again and I'm going to try really hard to be better at it.
Love always,
Katie
