A friend of mine started a graduate program in counseling in January. While I’m happy for her, I’m feeling a little… Well, I’m not exactly sure what I’m feeling, but maybe I’ll find it as I write.
A bit about my story.
I studied Corrections & Juvenile Services as well as Psychology in college. I loved my studies. When I graduated from college in 1992, I intended to get either go to law school or get a doctorate in Psychology. After working in a home for juvenile delinquents for six months, I decided law school was for me. Working with troubled teens in the home with so many restrictions against things that could actually help left me feeling like trying to help people overcome their issues would kill me. I mean that more literally than it might sound. I was worn out physically, emotionally, and mentally by the end of the six months. Physically because I was working an unrealistic schedule. It was so bad, I still remember the precise hours to this day. (Wed 9am-11am staff meeting, Wed midnight to 8am Thursday, Thursday midnight to 8am Friday, Saturday 4pm-midnight (usually actually left around 1or 1:30am, Sunday 8am to midnight). Emotionally because I was constantly dealing with drama whether at work or at home. I wasn’t good at leaving my work at work. I identified all too often with the problems the girls expressed. Mentally because it seemed like everything I’d learned in college didn’t apply in the real world and I couldn’t figure out why. At the time, I didn’t feel like I could keep going. It was either the job, my marriage, or me. I could handle the job and my problems or my marriage and my problems, but not both. And, I knew it. I opted for my marriage and quit the job. Quitting anything was never easy for me. After some long thought, long discussions with my husband, and reading several books, I reached the decision that law school was the right way to go. A lot of factors went into my decision but in the end, it boiled down to two things. Neither of which make me especially proud. 1) The time and money involved and 2) My husband favored law school because he’d just witnessed and been affected by the turmoil, disillusionment, and helplessness I’d felt dealing with troubled teens and he didn’t get the appeal of psychology. (As an engineer, he’s more grounded in applying equations and logic to problem solving.)
So I began studying to take the LSAT. I also started reading books recommended for those planning to apply for law school. The boredom and frustration I felt while reading these should’ve been my first clue. I’m a real “but what if” kind of person. I always wanted to know more about the circumstances. I wanted to know the why behind the actions of the people and the why for every decision. I wanted to know every little thing about the circumstances. I had a hard time accepting the decisions presented in the books. I undrestood there was a legal reason, but I wanted to know how the victim was surviving and if the perpertrator could be “rehabilitated”. Still, I persisted. I studied and studied. I felt prepared. Then I received my LSAT scores. I scored lower than I would’ve liked. I couldn’t afford to retake the test at that time, so I revised the list of law schools I’d created to include ones more in line with my score.
We also realized not soon after I left my job that we couldn’t survive on my husband’s salary alone. He was working as a contract employee at Lexmark. I started temping. I needed something with the flexibility to keep up my studies but that would help us make ends meet. Surviving on $10.00 a week for groceries was getting tough. Sometimes I’m not sure how we did it. After a couple of short term assignments, I was offered permanent employment by a company where I was temping. I took it. A situation arose on that job that lead me to lose faith in the legal system and revisit my fascination with psychology.
Then, my husband got a job in Columbus, Ohio. A move was in order. Since he’d been working as a contract employee and my job was becoming increasingly uncomfortable, this looked perfect to us. More money, a steady job, and I could apply to the OSU Law School. I filled out the application to the OSU Law School and mailed it in. They didn’t accept me, so I started looking at other law schools. However, looking back, I’m not so sure my heart was in the search. I started thinking about Psychology again. I temped for a while then got a job at Franklin University. I really liked that job and thought the opportunity to take some classes might help me apply to law schools when the time was right. One big thing hanging over my head through all of this was we were in debt and had no money for school, so I had no idea how I was going to go even it I got accepted somewhere.
Then, time to move again. This time to Boise, Idaho where my husband had a job offer. He’d applied for a job in California with my law school ambitions in mind, but, alas, the company offered him Idaho. No law school in Boise and no Master’s/Doctorate program in Clinical Psychology either. But, financially, we couldn’t afford for him to turn down the job or for me to even go back to college. So we moved with the idea that we’d stay in Boise three years. We would get out of debt and save some money. Then, he’d look for a job in a place where I could pursue one or the other of my ambitions. I would write full time. I’d never quit writing, so that was the one constant in my career life. However, I wasn’t pursuing publication very much in those days. Seemed like a good plan.
We stayed in Boise for 13 years give or take a couple of months. Somewhere around year 4 or 5, I stopped even thinking about pursuing either of my former ambitions. I temped a while, worked through some personal issues, wrote a lot, and eventually became involved with planning Murder in the Grove. Occasionally, I’d feel a little twinge that I’d let both of those dreams go, but life was good enough that it no longer seemed to matter. My husband, however, finally expressed to me that he was bothered that I’d given up on both. He started asking me if I regretted it. At first I said no. Then maybe. Then I’m not sure. Eventually, I started wondering if I should pursue the Psychology degree. I was totally over the law degree thing by then. So I started researching it. Me, being me, was only interested in the original ambition, and never considered anything else. It was a Doctorate in Psychology or nothing.
Part of the reason my husband pursued a position in Oregon was my desire to get my Master’s in Psychology. When we moved I still hadn’t made a decision. I had lunch with a lady from the psychology department at OSU a few times, and we talked about my goals. I left the lunches feeling happier about writing full-time and less interested in pursuing the degree. My interest I have is in why people do what they do. And, that I can continue to pursue on my own through my writing. And, I can reach a broader audience through the written word than I can through one-on-one counseling.
So am I saying I’ll never pursue that degree? Well, no, I’m not. I’m saying it’s not right for me at the moment. I don’t know if it ever will be.
So where was this going? Oh, yeah, my reaction to Kelly’s life change. Well, here’s what I know. I love my life. I love writing. I love when someone reads my words and finds something to which they can relate. So I guess what happened when I read Kelly’s news was a twinge of “what if” related to those past dreams.
Life works best when we let go of what we expected it to be, embrace the now, and move forward.
February 13th, 2010 at 6:52 pm A question we all ask ourself. I’m glad you had the guts to pursue your writing career. Your right you always have time later to change careers as long as your not afraid to face the challenge. Me, I would be afraid to face the unknown.
February 20th, 2010 at 11:21 pm I love when I get to be in your blogs! Doggedly staying with the Master’s program, but may need some SERIOUS therapy along the way… hope to chat soon!