School Exhaustion

I feel like I've been at college forever. It is my fourth year, and a lot of the friends I made living in the dorms as a freshman are leaving in June. I feel like I'm no where near ready to have actually earned my degree, but I also feel like I've been fighting for it for so long that I should have gotten it years ago. Since fibromyalgia hit me the worst during my sophomore and junior years, every quarter I have been here has felt like a battle. When I graduate, I swear it will feel like the end of the Hundred Year War.

Fibro makes it so hard to go to school and work, especially all in the same day. I've often skipped a morning class so I have the energy for the more important afternoon class. I would be so behind if I didn't have kind and caring friends in classes with me, who really help out with note-taking and homework groups for motivation. While the situations that led to the extra year here are not idea, I'm really glad to have my best friend in my classes with me.

I shouldn't feel bad about taking five years for my physics degree. At my school, five or six years is pretty typical for a physics degree due to how difficult the content is and the frequency of course offerings (once a year). Most people don't realize they want to take physics right away either, which means that they missed their opportunity to finish the major within four years. Especially in physics, what matters is whether you finish the degree.

However, that doesn't mean that it is easy to be at college for five years. For me it means not having a steady income over the next year and taking out a lot more debt than I intended.  I've been working since my sophomore year, often two jobs at a time on top of school. This isn't easy with fibromyalgia, but it is necessary in order to pay my rent. I still take out nearly the full cost of attendance in private loans. And I'm growing pretty tired of the antics which accompany a college town. My town is beautiful, but the poor housing availability near the school, the constant bike theft, and the monthly voyeurism reports are really wearing on me.

I'm ready to be done with my physics degree. I'm ready to be proud of myself for my accomplishments. I'm ready to be moving on to a life that I am more in control of.

So for now, I'll just keep working and imagining myself in the graduation cap at the end of this journey.