Last spring I took a course in positive psychology. One of the authors that I read pointed out that many people fail to see the difference between something that is urgent and something that is important. Often, urgency supercedes importance and we hurry around our lives achieving many pointless but urgent things. While the course was not revolutionary, it did help me to put much into perspective.
When Maman called me last Wednesday and told me the news that she is dying of cancer I immediately reeavaluated what I am doing along the lines of what is urgent and what is important. What I discovered is that school work ranks first on the list of urgency (I have about three fifths of a semester left to graduate) with deadlines, deadlines, deadlines. However, I also realized that my grades this semester don't matter. They don't matter for two reasons.
1. Who cares what grades I earn? No one (Maman, stop worrying about this, it'll be ok).
2. There isn't a grad-school in the world that won't forgive me a bad semester or two due to addressing my relationship with my mother before she passes/grieving (especially in psychology!).
This has helped me to get some of my ducks in a row. It means that I'm going to be making more time to go home and visit my mother and post snippets of video with her for my siblings. It also means that I'm going to blow off school for a weekend to help Andrew move to Chicago.
Spending time with Maman is now both important (which it has always been) and urgent. Spending time with Andrew and my family is also important (though less urgent) but is starting to outrank graduating from university (which is only vaguely important) but is relatively urgent. Please don't let this post convince you that I neither care about my grades nor value higher education. That would be the wrong conclusion to come to. Rather, I've come to a point where I can view both of them in perspective of living and can remember that life is not at all about acquiring the praise others (which is what a degree is, really).
Mensch, another reason you can let go of your grades a bit is that I am assuming you have a pretty good, solid GPA thus far. At this point, your GPA is going to fluctuate so little depending on your grades that, based on your GPA anyway, no one will probably even be able to tell you had a 'bad' semester.
I discovered this my senior year when I had to work my bum off in every single class in order to move my GPA up just a fraction of a decimal point (I wanted magna cum laude). I had something like 3.789 and I wanted a 3.8. I had to have an A in every class (not a single A- permitted!). See what I mean?
Take care of yourself and I'll see you soon.
Posted by: Mara at October 18, 2006 3:09 AMI know you think I be freakin', but I'm not. I agree with you. This is a process and the only way to the other side is to go through it. Life will wait. And it will go on. Trust me.
Posted by: Ma at October 18, 2006 1:44 PMLife is numbing for me...at least you seem to have ducks to row up.....all my ducks are, one by one, slowly, definitively, disappearing.......
Posted by: papa at October 23, 2006 9:47 PM...what??? You are SO getting an email. I'd call but I don't have your number.
Posted by: Charlene at October 24, 2006 3:08 PM