Plans

What's the best way to make God laugh? Make a plan.

It's hard to make plans when fear of failure is your foundation. I let that fear guide my choices for the last year and a half lately...it hasn't been very helpful at all...So, I graduated from southwestern Michigan college with an associates in Graphic Design. It was great, I figured I had it all made and perfect. Then I needed to get my bachelors degree, simple. I'll just go to the nearest school that has a bachelor for Graphic Design. Andrews University was the best plan to make...at the time. 

Looking back...there isn't actually anything wrong with Andrews University. It is a fine school with high morals and expectations. I just couldn't stand the fact that I had failed. I had to work harder for what I needed to achieve and I couldn't give more than I was trying to give. For some reason, it just wasn't in me. You can never say I didn't try and go to Andrews, I did. I just wasn't achieving what I wanted so I gave up. I gave up to escape the encroaching darkness of failure. I was failing two of the four classes, not getting enough chapel hours, falling behind on the deadlines for projects, and my quality of work was so low beyond the standard that they wanted that it seemed to them like a joke when I presented my work. I left Andrews after one semester. $6300 in debt, angry with myself for being so foolish, completely embarrassed, and without any plan for the future. 

Pull yourself up by the bootstraps. That saying makes no sense. 

So I tried to get up and move on. Find a new college, near by but not as close as Andrews. I move on to IUSB thinking that it would be cheaper than Andrews and that I might have a better time without chapel breathing down my back. But still within me was the weight of fear and the embarrassment of my failure at Andrews. What did I do? I decided that I didn't like the IUSB building, that it felt too much like a law firm. I whined about how they didn't hold my hand through the process and guide me to every little thing that I needed to have done. I gave up before there was even a chance to fail. And because of how weird I am, most people around me simply accepted my rejection of the school for simple reasons. I once denied a child a bath because he wanted a killer whale toy to bathe with. I do strange things...

So now, here I am...This entire year I have done nothing. The craziness at Andrews started in fall of 2011 and ended that December. I spent the rest of the time from then to now baby sitting and moping about. I also spent that time trying to figure out what it really is that I want to do in this life. I still don't know...The support that I was unhealthily dependent upon was hundreds of miles away, my reason for going to school (so I could go to Korea and teach English/eat Korean food/have my way with their men) was coming to the light and it looked not only pathetic but pointless and full of work that I wasn't willing to put forth, and the things that I have interest in (crocheting/knitting/sewing/watching anime) have no value in the real world other than to be a pretty hobby (not a living). 

Once again, I was lost. So I planned to go back to southwestern, to try and get some more art classes. Just to be doing...Something....Turns out that I can't go back and be covered by financial aide if I am trying to go back under the same degree that I already have a degree in. It’s confusing but in the end, I can't go back. I can't go backwards. I don't see a forward. Doldrums. Once again, doldrums. Always.

Plans. I have no plans. I have no direction. I have no idea what I am doing. 

To appease those around me...and so that I don't slip into madness. I am going to either get a job...since I do have a degree. Or go to IUSB and stop denying them simply because they have a really stuffy feeling to them and they won't hold my hand. That is my plan at the moment. It’s not much and I don't even know if it will work but it is my plan. There are so many around me going through worse things than I am, so many who are struggling and would kill to be in my situation. But it is like a thick fog is over me, in the moment I can't even see that as a way to dig myself out. I'm aware of it but it doesn't present itself as an answer or a comfort. It’s simply a fact that I can't hold on to. 

So there it is. That's my place right now. I have...plans...I suppose you can call them that. But they aren't meaning much at the moment. Not a whole lot is. 

Still no new name for the blog....Guess that's cause I haven't stopped whining...It'll come to me. 

Song: I Am by Train

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdPhTw_b1xw