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Thanks for visiting my diary. I've been journaling since 1984 and have chosen to share some of my entries online. They are not all positive thoughts, but I hope that reading them might be a blessing to someone who needs encouragement.
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Please also visit my music page, where you can hear samples from my debut CD, I Believe, which features songs written based on experiences shared in this journal.
Hmmmm... I still feel in a lot of ways like I am just floundering. Trying to find myself a niche in the world. I know that things are better than they were a year ago and especially two years ago.
I talked to Mom yesterday about some decisions I had made. We talked about my upcoming graduation and the fact that I don't know if I can finish one of the classes in time. She asked me what happens if I don't, and I told her I'd have to pay more money ($7) and reapply for December. She just said, "Well, that's fine then," like it was no big deal. I was so relieved! It helps to hear that the pressure isn't there, even though I already knew. I was the one putting it on myself, not the rest of the world. So I'm going to go slow and do good with this class. I've done mediocre with emotions, but it's just hard and over my head. I've done pretty well on the assignments, but I've been wimping out on electronic class participation, aka posting on the class bulletin board, and that figures into the grade. But I don't care. That's the kind of class I just want to get through. I'm still in the beginning stages of the research class, and I have a chance to make a really good grade.
I decided I'm going to go back and get a second dog guide. I retired my first one this year. She will be 10 in September, andshe's gotten to the point where she really can't handle long days out any more even though she's healthy. I had kind of thought about waiting a while before I get another one, but after thinkingabout it I decided it's time. It's just an ideal time. I'm not going to be going to class. I'm not employed. What better timing!
I'm still trying to find a way to use my skills & knowledge. Even if I go on to grad school in an area of interest to me, I still am feeling the pull of the work ethic and needing some independence. I'm so tired of living at home. I am and always will be greatful for my parents, but I need a place where I can be me and live within the lifestyle that I have developed over all the years when I did live apart from them. My parents and I are not clashing so much now that things with my sister have settled down, and they are learning to let me have a bit more leeway with my own life. I guess it's as hard for them to adjust to letting me be independent as it is for me to convince myself that I'm not a child. I told my therapist the other day, "I don't go anywhere, just like when I was 12. I have the same chores I had when I was 12. My parents come home and don't interact, just like when I was 12. It's hard to remember that I am not 12."
My mom is trying so hard to help me, though. I keep coming up with self-employment ideas, and some of them actually have appealed to her and are things she's willing to help me with. She was particularly interested in helping me with self-publishing, so that will probably be the route I choose. Marketing my stuff will also give me some opportunities to travel and do a bit of speaking, which I also enjoy. I get real excited thinking about this idea. And in my chief area of interest, I am especially blessed to have the support of a lot of new Internet friends who are parents of blind children. In moments like this, when I am thinking clearly, it truly amazes me how God has provided the support I have needed to survive and begin to live again after the worst four years of my life. Four years doesn't seem like a very long time, but it's an eternity when I'm living it and when a lot of it seems out of my ability to change, as was the case with my surgery, and the rest is things I feel guilty over getting myself into.
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