Overwhelmed

It's that season again--all the outdoors is decidedly autumnal; the orchard is ablaze and the grass has greened up again since our first rains arrived last week. It's foggy now in the mornings, and cold. I leave early for classes, and my poor little defrost doesn't even clear the glass until I get past the bridge headed towards town.

I want to enjoy this season, but it's been so long since I had an autumn free from a heavy classload, I can't even remember what it's like to slow down and savor October's pleasantries. I rush from class to class, putting in my 18 hours of in-class time and 25+ hours of studying each week. Nursing school is rough stuff.

I'm so overhwhelmed. I find it ironic that this most beautiful of seasons weighs me down and makes me dread the coming winter, all the dark days and icy rain, relentless assignments piled on our already sagging shoulders.

So I wonder, is it worth it? Do I really want to be here? Five years of work to get where I am, so close to the end, and yet it seems so far away. Springtime. It may never come. And if it does, will I have finished strongly? Or will I have given up somehwere in the dark fog of winter, left beside the road, unable to go on?

I will finish. It may take everything I've got and then some, but I have begun this thing and I will finish it. And I realize, one obstacle is replaced by another, and life is this way--carrying on, carrying on, pushing through the last brutal piece of road with a shred of strength . . . and then the trial ends. Relief, sweet relief, and rest. Enough to build up the courage to step foot at the bottom of the next high hill.