Slowing Down

Had a chat with my husband the other day about what I'm doing, and decided that what I need to do is slow down.

I'm working full-time AND I'm in grad. school AND I just got married AND we're trying to buy a house AND I still want time to relax and spend with the people I love. Something had to give, and right now that thing is grad. school.

My grand plan was to finish next year, which would require summer classes, two each in the fall and spring, etc., and no breaks. A lot has happened in the past year, though, and I'm just a human being.

Lately I've felt a bit frantic, like I have to finish school as soon as possible so that I can still have kids before 30, if we decide that's definitely where our life is headed. But it wouldn't be the end of the world if I started at 30, or even 31.

What have I been thinking? With work and school combined, my load has almost been heavier than my friend who's in a fairly intense Masters in counseling program, and rivals what one of my co-workers did working thirty hours a week with one class at a time and kids. My very first semester in fall of '07, I took two classes. I was so stressed out that I started getting paranoid about lending tupperware to people, of all things.

I am what you would call a "Type A" person--I really hate saying "I can't." The truth is, though, that I can't do this to myself if I want to stay mentally healthy.

So, I'm taking this summer off, and I may do this one class at a time from now on. It would take me three more years to graduate, for a total of five years from the time I started. That's a long haul . . . but breaking my mind to do it in a shorter period could end up being a longer one.