Well, here we are. I am not doing well. And I say this not so people feel bad for me, but because this is my space to scream into the void and frankly, I need to. So let me try and explain why I feel as though life is falling apart right now.

Lately I’ve been waking up and then almost immediately having to go back to sleep. I truly hate that this has become a part of my life. I wish I could just get up and get my day started but unfortunately, I am incapable of doing that. It’s not a matter of “oh just get up and get moving!” No. It’s literally impossible. My entire body will fight me until I go back to sleep. I wish I could say that it was because I’m not getting enough sleep at night, but I usually get between 9 and 10 hours. Which makes this even worse. So once I get that out of the way I can get to work.

Now let’s move on to the question I have been getting asked most- “how’s grad school?” And here’s the short answer: bad. It sucks. The material and the grading is hard. Truly that is not a huge part of it. I mean it’s definitely a stressor but it probably isn’t my main stressor. For one, I am completely online. I do not interact with anyone in my class (beside discussion board posts). I don’t really get to talk with my professors. I’ve had a few zoom calls but it’s not the same as walking into a physical office and asking questions. To put it frankly, I’m really lonely. Now there are many reasons (that I won’t get into) that I chose the program that I did. But I am very far away from most of my classmates who are also remote but most reside in the state of Kentucky. I am also very far away from my friends from Slippery Rock. As most live in the Western PA/ Ohio region I am over in NJ all alone from my friends and classmates. So I sit in my room, and do my work and it’s very isolating. A few times I did some work while sitting in the library. Which was less isolating admittingly. At this point the obvious answer would be “keep doing work in the library! This is very simple!” Which would be correct If the library didn’t flood during the last storm. I am also in a somewhat accelerated program. Yes, I am on the advanced standing track which will help me get my MSW in three semesters. But within that my classes are condensed into half semesters. I am just about to finish Fall A. It’s 8 weeks and let me say I am not ready to jump into Fall B (which includes my internship). So I am stressed because of grad school. 

Also I am a very sensitive person. Sometimes the weight of the world gets me down. Like a lot. Honestly, I don’t know how everyone is expected to be fine as our environment collapses around us, internal and global politics falls apart, and a global pandemic continues to rage on. How is everyone not screaming all of the time? The world is falling apart and I’m just expected to keep going like nothing is happening? Nope. Not possible.

And just an add on: I am still fully grieving the loss of my grandma. There are moments everyday that I feel the gut punch of grief. And I don’t anticipate that going away anytime soon. So just combine that with all of the other stuff. 

Also there is a scab on my head that I just want to pick at. I know I shouldn’t because that isn’t good but there are such bigger problems that I have to worry about that just picking my head scab shouldn’t be that big of a deal, ya know. And I don’t want to be picking at it but if that’s just one thing I can do to make me feel marginally better then I guess I don’t feel too bad about it. This is so minor but at this point the minor is starting to stress me out. And this is my place to scream so head scab paragraph it is.

So things are stressful and there is a lot going on. Please don’t take this blog post as a sign of anything. I just needed to get a lot of this off my chest. And writing this really helped with that. So remember it’s okay to be feeling stressed as hell right now and you’re not alone.