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Victories and Defeats
Our little grandbabies are so precious to us, and we celebrate every tiny new victory, every gained bit of knowledge. He is my whole life, and I mourn as each of those things we celebrate in the children are taken from him: how do you play that game? How do you do a puzzle? When do I take those pills?
Little Yellow Bowl My little yellow bowl broke today, its handle finally succumbing to 34 years of regular use and hot dishwashers. It’s not much of a bowl. Plastic, part of a set long gone. And I was surprised at the rush of emotion I felt. You see, my mother-in-law gave me that bowl. She gave me the whole set as part of a large box of utensils and bowls and dishcloths and other kitchen things her son and I would need as we set up our first home together. While many may not see that as such a big deal, it was. I was most decidedly not her choice for her son. And yet, she still did this thoughtful thing. I use that bowl for nearly everything. It has a little spout, making it perfect for pouring pancake batter on a hot griddle or cake mix into cupcake tins. And every time I used it over the years, I thought about her. The rest of the contents of that box are mostly long gone. But the little yellow bowl hung in there, for 34 years. My mother-in-law and I had what can ta...
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College students know about hitting the wall and that sense of fatigue, but in this case it’s not so much physical as it is mental. It usually sets in about mid-term for those on the semester schedule. I don’t remember where it surfaced when I was on quarters. That’s the blessing of Spring Break. It’s a chance to recharge, relax, gear up again for the final assault.
Every semester has its wall. Some, we sail over barely noticing them in our way; others, we drag ourselves over hoping gravity will kick in and take us down the other side. I’ve seen some students, like Marines on an obstacle course, who only made it over the last one because a compatriot was willing to reach down from the top of the wall and help pull them up and over.
We’d like to blame the wall on our circumstances (read that, “our professors”). There’s too much work, it’s coming too fast, expectations are too high. Don’t these people know I have a job, a life, a sport, a family, a ...whatever? But it’s never been about those things, or even about our professors. Like I said, it’s a mental thing, something we create in our own heads. Unlike runners who have burned up a physical supply of glycogen, we burn up an imaginary supply of academic stamina or brain power.
Today is the end of the 7th week of (God willing) my final semester, and I have hit the wall. Not even to the midpoint, I am tired, frustrated, bored. I can’t blame it on the course work. With a few notable exceptions, there’s nothing particularly challenging in my schedule. My work or family can’t take responsibility. No new obligations have been added to my plate. I have simply hit a wall of my own making, one that I have carefully built, brick upon brick.
Like a scene from a bad episode of “Twilight Zone,” I look ahead toward graduation, and every week that comes closer, the end appears farther away, more uphill, more unreachable.
But this, after all, is my own creation. It exists only in my mind.
I heard a man yesterday say that our lives are like a screenplay; each of us a protagonist in our own story. The good news is that we also get to be the head writer. We can sit back and allow others to insert pages in the script, or even write bad scenes and dialogue for ourselves. Or we can do a rewrite and choose a better outcome - one where the hero wins and all her dreams come true.
So I’m sitting here, up against my wall, thinking this post could get a lot longer. But I have to end it now. I have a screenplay to write.