My last post about student life seems to have a negative tone in hindsight. I guess, to be fair, that negativity is a certain part of who I am as a person. To cut it straight with you folks, there are two hands of cards to be examined here. In one hand, I have been dealt some cards that would have me fold and cut my losses. You see, I am still unemployed and my unemployment is due to run out in the near future. I am in the midst of an appeal process with the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Authority trying to gain grants that I am more than eligible for. I didn’t get them in the first place because I was reinstated as a student later than the deadline for application for those specific funds.

In this hand, I am also holding a card of worry about my parents and their finances. Last week, my mother was hospitalized and while I could begin writing a blog about the Health Care system in this country based solely on the two days my mother was a patient; I will leave my thoughts regarding that issue as it sucks. My mother is doing okay now and everything should be fine but she is entering what will be a life long struggle to regain control of her diabetes. At the same time, my folks aren’t in the best financial straits. These days, not many people are. They have an adjustable rate mortgage on our house and Wilshire (the mortgage holder) has decided that now would be the perfect time to adjust the rate so dramatically that it would be impossible to pay it. Our house isn’t worth as much as our mortgage and better yet, the interest rate they are charging my folks is 5 points higher than the national rate indicates it should be.

The next card in this hand is always my health. I am walking a fine line between alright and really screwed up and it seems like that line is thinning as of late and it scares me. I will be looking into free counseling but in the meantime I am holding on and barely. To be completely frank, I am tired of living as a disabled person. I would love to touch, to feel, to breathe as easily and normally as most of you do.

This hand weighs heavy on my academic life. It is hard to study for midterms worrying about all of those things and there are still other cards in that hand that I am not mentioning for the sake of brevity.

Now, in the other hand, I am one lucky son of a gun. I am at a great school, with great professors and am deeply engaged in things that I not only love but that I am incredibly passionate about. I have met some great kids over there and I might end up with a friend or two which would be wonderful. I absolutely love Muhlenberg College and some days, I do not want to leave campus. I’m still keeping an eye out for a lady; although, with my mental condition and everything else, it is a half opened eye.

Today, I will be taking two midterms which have me nervous and occasionally downright frightened.
Five years ago, tests were a joke for me. I could take them with my eyes closed and get excellent grades. Now, a bit older and a lot more concerned about my future, taking a test has become a shitshow.

So, with two hands, one heavy with hope and the other heavy with worry, I am doing my best to beat the dealer. I am hoping the grant that I deserve and desperately need comes through. I am going to try and get a work study next semester. My hand of hope is guiding my actions despite my hand of worry making me as sick as a dog some days and utterly dejected on others. I have my fingers crossed with such force regarding my parents mortgage that my ulna may become conjoined. Time will tell. For now, I am going to be taking two midterms that I have studied my butt off for and despite the effort a C will satisfy me. Bottom line, I love college. It is where I belong. I fear greatly though that the forces I have worried so often about are indeed conspiring again to rip me out of it. I hope to God I’m wrong. I don’t want to leave again.

On my first day of school, back in August, I climbed three flights of stairs to find the lab where my first class would be taking place. It was probably the most emotionally weighted walk up a staircase that I had ever experienced. It took me a few minutes once I had reached the third floor to find the particular lab where my new life was waiting to begin.

Naturally, class was cancelled. If I was the author of my own life that outcome is a much better turn of events than anything I could conceivably have written. I spent a moment standing at the door thinking “Seriously?” Once that had passed, I spent a few more moments at the door thinking, “Really?”

The next day, I actually had class and I began becoming a student again. (slowly…) As I am writing this, I have been a Muhlenberg student for about a month and a half. I have had homework assignments (a lot of homework assignments), papers, class discussions, lab reports, and one test. (More on that test later.) I am as much of a student as I was before the three year absence but this time, everything is different.

Writing this, I am sitting in the glassy atrium of the Science Library in either Shankweiler or the New Science Building. These two buildings are merged in the middle and I am not quite sure at which particular brick one becomes the other. I am watching the usual torrent of scholarly bodies making their ways from dorms to class or class to lunch or whatever they are doing. The majority of them are well dressed, neatly combed, and wearing whatever attire they feel is appropriate to define themselves by.

I mean, that I can guess with near 100% certainty, which of these students is a musician or football player or sorority member or hippie or and I just looked up from my laptop screen, which of these students plays lacrosse. A young lady just walked by holding whatever that thing is called that you use to play lacrosse with. Walking among this collected body, I must confess that I feel a little out a place.

It isn’t just because on average I am six or seven years older than these individuals. It is because, while they are completely college students, I never will be again. In a few years, these folks will graduate and eventually find their ways into whatever the rest of their lives are going to be. At this point, in my life, I hold no hope in the promise of tomorrow. This academic training camp of future whatevers is not something I am a part of. They are hoping to make it to the majors. I am hoping for a shot at the Triple AAA team.

Do not misunderstand me, I am studying hard and working towards an end goal but big dreams of success and the things I wanted to do when I grew up are long gone. I just want to survive and hopefully, survive well. A classmate of mine asked me a few weeks ago what the real world was like. Flabbergasted, I stared at him for a minute. He was an 18 year old kid from New York who had yet to work a day in his life. I told him to keep studying and he would never find out.

So, after three terrible years, I am ensconced in student life. My friends have asked me how it feels. Truthfully, I am scared shitless. I worry constantly that something, big or small, will occur that will force me out again and the same things that happened three years ago will happen again. I catch myself smiling on occasion and I quickly make sure to clarify my seemingly tenuous position at school and remove my smile. I am still broke. I still have many bills and I am still on unemployment. I am still sick and I still cannot afford the treatment I so desperately need.

So, I wait for the bad thing to happen; whatever that bad thing may be. As a matter of fact, this new worry of impending disaster has worsened many of my most frequent symptoms. Despite all of my neurosis, I march on. I am so pleased to be where I am and truthfully, in a smaller dose, not taking this for granted is probably healthy. The manner in which I am taking this is unfortunately unhealthy.

The first test I took, I got a C. It wasn’t for lack of studying. I studied my “old” ass off. I did not however prepare for the panic attack I would have during my test period. Readers, do not attempt to take tests will taking lorazepam. It does not work out well.

Let’s see what happens next. I am hoping for the best. I am really doing alright despite being afraid constantly of an imminent failure. I’ll keep this story updated occasionally on here. Thanks for reading.

Do not miss my other post from this morning:

What’s the point of a City Park? Part 4: Recreation