5 down, 3 to go

So, after a week/semester from hell I can finally just sit and relax. I’m listening to Mumford and Sons while sitting in a rocking chair at the airport anxiously waiting for my plane to arrive to take me home. On one hand, I cannot believe that this semester is over. But on the other hand I have never been more ready for a semester to be over, because it seemed like one of the longest semesters of my life. With the conclusion of this semester, I have completed 5 semesters of college, and I only have 3 more semesters left at SLU. I can’t even begin to fathom that in a year and a half I will be graduating, moving into the “real world” and actually be working as a nurse. Talk about some major life changes… Time really does just fly by. I can still perfectly remember high school and sitting in the parking lot talking after school, going to Jon Paul’s after football games, going to breakfast at Soby’s every Tuesday during late start. In three years so much has changed. I have changed and so have my friends but our friendships have very much stayed the same. I only really have one semester left of actually classes, because most of our senior year is spent doing preceptorships and taking classes like fine arts…

I really don’t think that any semester I have ever gone through seemed to pass as slowly as this fall. It seems like ages ago that I moved in to our house at the end of August, but really it has been less than 4 months. In my defense, it has been a rough semester for me, a roller coaster I like to call it. This semester was probably the roughest semester in terms of classes and academics that I have ever taken in my life. But I hear from the senior nursing students that the block I was in is the hardest one and that it will only get easier form here. So, I have hope in that area. Next semester I get to take Pediatrics and Maternity, and after I graduate my first choice is to work as a pediatric oncology nurse and then maybe in labor and delivery/ the NICU, so I am really looking forward to next semester and those classes and clinicals. Right now, I am about 100% certain that history likes to repeat itself. Junior year in high school was pretty rough for me… With mono, and really difficult classes, anxiety issues, etc. I struggled. It was both physically and emotionally draining for me, but I got through it and obviously made it out alive. It seems to me like my junior year of college is almost identical to my junior year of high school, but maybe on a larger, more difficult scale. It’s been one tough ride, lots of ups and downs, but I do know for a fact that I am stronger and can deal with it better now, and will become even stronger because of it. It’s funny because this year and my junior year of high school are so similar but they are also a bit different. Most of the struggles junior year in high school were solely focused on me, and while this semester I have dealt with a lot of things personally, I have also had a lot weighing on me emotionally with my family.

Let’s see, at the beginning of the semester my little cousin had a trip to the ER as a result of his attempt to do parkour… little boys and flips off of the porch obviously don’t go well together, but at the same time, try and stop a little boy from doing it and it just don’t work out to well. One of the big hospitals in St. Louis, St. Anthony’s made a big budget cut, which resulted in the lay offs of close to 200 employees, including my aunt, who is like my second mom in Saint Louis. (It helps that she is my mom’s twin and has some physically similarities to my mom). She is waiting to hear back from a job opportunity that she is really excited about so send some prayers up for her. Then, over Thanksgiving break my mom got a call from my aunt saying that my grandmother had had a stroke and was in the ICU. By the time I got back to St. Louis, my grandmother had been moved to a residential rehab, where she spent about 2 and a half weeks. I was able to go see her in the rehab hospital which as a little bittersweet. It was really good to she her, but she was just exhausted and she didn’t remember who I was. So that was really tough for me because it was completely different than a week before when I had seen her before her stroke. It has been almost a month since the stroke and she still is having a lot of memory issues and remembering who is who and how we are related. I have quite this list of aliases growing. I am most commonly Susan… However, since she was discharged from the rehab hospital, she has moved in with my aunt and uncle, which is a much safer arrangement than her living in her apartment by herself. It has been quite an emotional ride for her, which makes it emotional for all of us because you hate seeing someone you love and care about go through all of that. So that all happened and I thought God was finally going to give me a break, but no. That was just not his plan. While at dinner with my other Grandma and Grandpa, I found out that she was recently diagnosed with Follicular Lymphoma. They believe that they caught it early, and my grandmother and grandfather don’t seem to be too worried about it. But me being a natural worrier and studying all about it in class only makes me worried and upset. I’m sure everything will be ok, but it is still scary. So add all of that to the added stress of class and a few other things going on in my life and that has been my semester… And if that wasn’t enough all that was going on kind of led me to withdraw and isolate myself from some of my best friends. Not too fun…

I have learn a great deal about myself this semester though. I am still trying to process it all, but it has been a good thing. I’ve learned I am more independent than I thought I was, but at the same time that it is ok to ask for help. I have discovered some really great friends who I was friends with before but never opened up to until this semester. I’ve discovered that not everything will be ok, but somethings will, and that is completely ok, because sometimes that is just the way that the pieces fall. And in time things will fall right into place. If I could describe my semester in a song, it might have to be “Life ain’t Always Beautiful” by Gary Allan. If you haven’t heard it, it is definitely worth the listen. It is right when it says that life isn’t always beautiful, but it is a beautiful ride. It is like a roller coaster that has its ups and downs. It is just our choice whether or not we want to scream or enjoy the ride.

In mass last night we sang a song and one of the verses was “spirit of light, dance within our darkness.” It was the third Sunday of advent, Gaudete Sunday, and the whole mass and the readings were about rejoicing and giving thanks. Even in times of darkness. I was listening to the song as they were singing it and I realized that I do not just want the spirit of light to dance within my darkness, I want to dance with it in my darkness. That may sound odd, but I don’t know of another way to put it. I want to be able to look past the superficial layer of hard times and be able to rejoice in them and realize that they are a gift and they only make me stronger and grow closer to God. (It’s been a faith-strengthening semester for me). I was reading my devotion this morning, with the intention of writing this blog this evening and this is what it said to me, “Facing the emptiness inside you is simply the prelude to being filled with My fullness. Therefore, rejoice on those days when you drag yourself out of bed, feeling sluggish and inadequate. Tell yourself that this is the perfect day to depend on me in childlike trust.” After all, it was God who told us to “let light shine out of darkness.” (Funny how God sends us messages sometimes…) The following a meditation by Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, who is by far one of my favorite saints:

"And when Jesus conceals Himself during grievous interior trials such as dryness, aridity, anguish in darkness, when all the words of love, confidence, abandonment say nothing more to us, do not touch us, do not reach us anymore, what then? What soul has not passed through these nights?

"It is then that we must push confidence to the extreme limits. These trials are graces, because they are occasions for pure faith. Pure love is realized in pure faith, and pure faith is realized in darkness in the same way as 'strength is perfected in weakness.' Profit, profit from these dark hours when your nature grieves, when your heart is cold, when you believe, wrongly, that Jesus is very far from you and even, perhaps, that He is turning His eyes away from you, because you see yourself to be so imperfect and wretched; profit from them to make heroic acts of faith and confidence out of pure will. These are the most precious acts -- they have immense merit because in those times they are acts of pure faith, without consolation and without sensible aid.

"That is the moment to say to Jesus, 'You may sleep in my boat; I shall not awaken You. You are hiding Yourself, but I know well where You are hidden: You are hidden in my heart. I do not feel it, but I know it. I believe in Your love for me and I believe in my love for You.' "

So the semester is finally over. And after grades come in over the next few days, I have nothing to do but relax and spend time with my family and friends for a whole month. As I do that I might try to make some more sense about the chaos I have called my life for the past few months. And if history does seem to be repeating itself, I only have up to go from here. Some say that all great changes are preceded by chaos. If this is true, I have some great changes in store soon. We will just have to wait and see I guess what God has in store for me.