On Hope

Somedays hope is expressed through mere routine: I wake, I rise, I bathe, I dress.

Some days hope is expressed in more nuanced ways: I dream, I plan, I pursue.

Today I started looking through the UW website for information on requirements for different majors, and how I might create an individual major for myself. Interestingly, my interests fall into three majors: Anthropology, Communication Arts and Journalism/Mass Media. I don't know how I might juggle all of these disciplines and my natural sciences in 50 or so credits.

I also started looking at the McBurney Disability center and how to get a disability consideration, what documents are needed, etc. If I am accepted for the fall I will have a LOT of work to do to get the classes I need/want and to get myself into the proper advising. Plus looking for spring grants and monies to take summer courses.

And I followed up with the person who is reviewing my information for my SSD case, she said she's gotten everything but the major information from my hospitalization, which apparently is handled by a third-party vendor, so there isn't much I can do to speed it up. I should have a yea or nay on that by July, I guess. If it is a nay, I am going to appeal it. If otherwise, I will have one less thing to worry about.

Speaking of worry, there is always the possibility that I do not have all of the correct requirements to get into the UW this fall. If that is the case, I'm covered, having already enrolled in fall courses at MATC. I figure better safe than sorry.

That, too, is hopeful, even though it might not seem so. In any case I will be where I need to be in order to get what I need to get for what WILL be MY DEGREE. I know, despite occasional discouragement, that I can do this.

And I know that even when it seems like no big thing to other people, this process of going to school is difficult for me, is perhaps harder for me than for others. I was always used to being able to do well and not have to work "too hard", but in the past year or so have become more cognitively challenged, and it's become quite difficult to get my academic goals met.

That's been really hard.

But, I hope, and I work, and I plan. And I see myself walking that stage, with my kids and my partner there to cheer me on. And that helps me steel myself, keep my resolve, and move forward.