Pressure

Why is it when you are almost to the finish line, you feel like it's the hardest and longest part?

My plan is to graduate next Saturday from UW-Stout with my bachelors in psychology. Something I have wanted to do since 2012. Life brought me on some curvy roads but I found my way back to it and now I am almost at the finish line. But dang, this has been the hardest part!

I am not even really sure what I want to do with my degree besides help people and most likely go on for my MA but what I never knew I would feel is utter fear. Fear that I won't make it, fear that I will mess up so bad and not graduate, fear that I won't finished what I started. I am also scared of all the opposite of those things.

See fear comes in lots of different ways, one of those is in the form of success. What if I do graduate? What if I do actually get to the point where I have to figure out the rest? What if at the end of the road, it's not everything I thought it would be.

Everyone can congratulate me, can give me the high fives, can understand that it isn't easy but they are never really in my shoes.

A single mom, working (now almost full time), no financial help from ex's, no husband here to help with the kids or dinner so I can study more, nope, I am doing this all on my own. That is a hard thing to do and I commend any single parent, with no co-parent or significant other there to help support them because I am her/him.

I cried tonight because I turned in a draft of a paper that was suppose to be complete and yet I couldn't finish it because I have been frustrated with how to write it. Research and statistics is not my strong suit. I have had 2 classes and now this is my third, where statistics are the main thorn in my side. Now do I now only have to do the statistics BUT I have to know how to interpret them AND how to tell other people (in plain language) what it all means. Let me tell you I am completely lost and I am completely scared, I'm not going to make it :(

It is a lot of pressure, so much pressure that as I sit here and write this blog, I have a knot in my stomach, a lump in my throat and tears rolling down my eyes, I am not sure I can do this. At least that is what keeps creeping into my mind. All the prayers, all the good lucks and all the best wishes won't get me the passing grade, heck, it won't even get me a spot in line, just in case I have to do this all over again. This is a make or break and I know that.

I don't write this for sympathy from others, I just need to vent, to get it out. I need to be able to take a deep breath and be able to understand either way it's going to be ok. I do that by letting it out, ya'll just get to be the lucky ones who read all about it.

With Christmas less than a couple weeks away, this looming graduation (that I don't even know if I will actually pass yet), my sons 11th birthday on the 21st and still getting settled in to the new job, I am stressed, I am consistently at a breaking point and my anxiety is always ready to bubble over. I am under a lot of pressure. I know diamonds are made this way but right now, right now I just want to be a grain of sand, floating, unnoticed at the bottom of the ocean, hoping that the waters will just take me away.

I know I am not alone and I guess thats why I am sharing..... because this, all of this, sometimes is just too much pressure.