Thursday afternoon I have to meet with the state\’s Dept. of Rehabilitation to discuss with them what\’s been going on since September and why it is I haven\’t reached the education goals I had agreed to complete in the contract I had to sign with them. (Though why it should matter to them that I haven\’t reached them, I don\’t know, because they haven\’t provided me with any services since I signed the contract, so I don\’t see how I\’ve really violated it. If they haven\’t paid for my schooling — which they haven\’t, I\’ve been paying for it — then I don\’t see why they should care.)

Reasons I haven\’t reached the goals stated in the contract:

  • Cut back on credit hours to help take care of my dying grandfather, three nights a week. Except nine months later he\’s still receiving hospice care, which means he\’s still dying and requiring a lot of care — not less. I was only supposed to take one semester off. The contract does not provide for nature/scientific medicine stringing things along.
  • October 29, 2007, ended up back in the hospital with my leg locked up again. Doctors said bed rest for three weeks, which meant I had to drop out of the class I was taking that semester.
  • The inertia of autumn caused Matt and I to decide to up our wedding plans/date from \”whenever I finish school\” to this past April. Due to timing, stress, financing, and health, that meant not taking classes during the winter or spring semesters.
  • It\’s summer semester now, and I\’m back in school. Thoroughly, utterly hating it, as per usual. While at my psychiatrist\’s yesterday, I read In the Basement of the Ivory Tower: The idea that a university education is for everyone is a destructive myth. An instructor at a “college of last resort” explains why. That idea really resonates with me. It\’s not that I\’m incapable of intellectually achieving at college, but my abominable track record makes a good argument for proving that I am highly challenged (and incapable of doing school \”normally\” at a \”normal\” rate — 10 years for an associate degree is ludicrous) at physically and psychologically maintaining my health long enough to complete even one full semester.
  • Currently, my health is on the wane, my medication levels are on the rise, and I\’m teetering on the edge of quitting this semester of school (as well as dropping summer II courses before they start), as well as quitting my job.

All of which and more is leading me to conclude that I am one of those people who simply cannot be fully rehabilitated. Yes, I will be a contributing member of society, but I won\’t be holding down a full time, skilled, well paid job. Admitting that to myself is to admit that I\’ve been living the past two years in a sort of Never-Never Land, grasping for the unattainable and believing in fairies. Realizing that I\’m just not going to be moving forward like I had thought and hoped, like I had planned and talked about, is a particularly uncomfortable humble pie to eat AND a bitter pill to swallow.

Not only do I not feel like being around myself, but I really don\’t feel like being around anyone I\’ve known over the past two years because I feel like a different person now — defeated and hollow. To continue to show my face around people I\’ve known feels like I have to act like the hopeful, future-driven person that I was instead of the static, attempting-acceptance person that I\’ve become. It also makes me feel like everyone around me is a stranger, and that I\’m a stranger to even the people I see almost every day. It makes me feel like I just want to walk away from everyone I know socially and to start over again. Unfortunately, in a city as small as this, that\’s almost impossible to do without going back to being a hermit. That\’s probably got a lot to do with why I haven\’t been able to get myself to attend any social functions for the past month, as well as why I\’m now suddenly not only willing but gung ho to move to a previously fairly unknown (to me) suburb, instead of back into the city.