It’s exactly 5:03 on a Sunday morning and the one day of the week I don’t have to get up this early…but I do anyway – if I want to sneak in a little down time for reflection and meditation without locking myself in my walk-in.
It’s hard to believe that classes at the Mount have only been in session for just under a month. There is a quality to the days that causes them to almost seamlessly meld into one save for a few intermittent spurts of sleep. Don’t get me wrong – I am neither overworked nor overwhelmed. After marriage, children and all the surprises those paths include, there is something serendipitous about landing in a place where I can actively pursue my own destiny; where plans are made to be met, roads built to be traveled; and limitations soundly dismissed.
It is fitting that I would be a non-traditional student in a traditional major (biology). It is indeed a metaphor for the very tenor of my life up to this point. There is very little that I find beyond belief or possibility, yet I am constantly awed and overwhelmed by the wonder and mysteries of this life – this universe even. Pragmatic yet intoxicated with the boundless possibilities ahead, I find it impossible not to be a bit thrilled.
Someone asked me last week about my motivations for returning to school – perhaps after everything thing else I’ve had the opportunity to do or perhaps even at this time in my life. Surprisingly, although going into my third term here, this is a question I’d not been asked by anyone other than my advisor (Note: I did expect to be more of an oddity than I apparently am!) yet I’d answered it in my mind a dozen times. The truth is, there comes a point when the realization that the dreams we are given don’t cease to exist just because we put them away for time. Sitting on a shelf does not negate them or make them any less powerful. When that realization for me intersected with the opportunity to actually pursue those dreams – how could I not seize upon it?
Life, time – goes by alarmingly fast. The days melt into weeks, months, years. Just yesterday I performed doll surgery on top of my parents wet bar and forced my brother to sit still while I prepped him for a brain transplant on the terrace. Life swooped in early and sped in a direction seemingly miles away from that girlhood dream of pursuing medicine. I could not have imagined that there would come a time when I would be here, now; not simply pursuing a dream, but continuing a journey. Perhaps, the road was leading in this direction all along – giving me the grace of a little extra preparation and few more tools to make the trip; in which case, what choice did I have but to pack a bag and accept the challenge?
A thought to share this morning:
"Destiny is not a matter of chance; but a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for; it is a thing to be achieved."
- William Jennings Bryan