When I first started this blog, I thought writing about my experiences from the past, having adequate time to look back and reflect on things, would make it easier to write a more compelling story about my experiences. The idea being with more time to reflect and really think about what I had to learn from these various situations, I would be better able to express my feelings and emotions and thus capture the interest of the audience while passing along some type of life lesson, words of wisdom or revelation.
But now that I've been doing it for a bit, I have to admit it's a little tougher than I thought. Ok, a lot tougher. I thought being able to look back on things would give me this enlightened perspective on life lessons. I thought I would hold a higher sense of wisdom about whatever challenges I had overcome. I thought a whole lot of things, but now that we're down and dirty, in the real knitty gritty, it's friggin tough. Insert life lesson here, I suppose. Isn't this ironic. But seriously though... We're going to fast forward through some parts of my life. Mainly to save time, but also because so much has happened between my second year of school and today that if we don't hurry this along, I will forget about what may be considered more significant details of how or why I am where I am right now. And because some things in life are better left unsaid, some stories better left untold and some things I'm just not ready to reveal or admit. So suck it up buttercup, that's just the way it is. The second year of college was nothing short of a challenge. It was a constant uphill struggle with obstacle after obstacle. I had enrolled my daughter in a french public school for senior kindergarten and we're an english speaking household. My relationship with my life partner was falling apart and it seemed no matter what we did to try to save it, things just kept getting worse. I had put an enormous amount of pressure on myself to remain on the Dean's Honour List and graduate with Honours. I also had this unrealistic expecation that I could attend school full-time, work part-time, keep up with all the stereo-typical female roles in the household and by that I mean cleaning, laundry and cooking, AND spend what I considered an ample amount of time with my daughter. The level of stress and tension I inflicted on the household was pretty close to unbearable. In fact, it became so unbearable by springtime that my crumbling marriage finally dissolved. But this decision we thought was best for everyone ended up being the most difficult time of my life. And while I can't speak for the other party involved, I can only assume it was hard on him as well. It took every ounce of strength I could find to slap on a smile and keep moving forward. I told the world I was fine when I was dying inside. Some time apart is all you need sometimes to see things from a new perspective and in a new light. To be grossly cliche, absence makes the heart grow fonder and time apart is exaclty what we needed to realize exactly how much we meant to each other. So by the time commmencement rolled around (end of June), we had resolved our differences, for the most part and started anew...stronger than ever and committed for the rest of our lives. Speaking of commencement... It's no secret how important it was to me to graduate with Honours. Looking back, I hate to admit, it's not really as important as I had once beleived. I think graduating period is an accomplishment in itself and very honourable. I had this belief that graduating with Honours would make others see me as more intelligent and or more worthy. And without going into much detail or opening up a can of worms that I don't particularly feel like dealing with, let's just say, in my mind, attaching Honours to my diploma meant acceptance by others. I was wrong. It doesn't matter. Not as much as I thought it would. In fact, it was pretty silly to put myself through all that stress and pressure just to graduate with a title that doesn't carry as much weight as I did trying to attain it. But, that's not to say I'm not proud of it. I'm damn proud. I worked my @ss off for that diploma. And while I'm fully aware that everyone has their own battles, their own obstacles and challenges, thier own stories...so do I. I climbed a friggin mountain for two years, an uphill struggle where failure was not an option and perservered with flying colours. Now those colours, that rainbow I get to dance in at the tip of the mountain peak, it shines gloriously upon my face. Basking in the glory of accomplishment means it should get easier now. I made it to the top, so it's all downhill from here, right? Boy oh boy, how naive was I?!
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Shauna QuinnNo stranger to taking the road less travelled, I must admit those not so great choices made me who I am and led me to where I am right now, which happens to be exactly where I am supposed to be. Archives
July 2018
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