Life as It Is: Reflections on the Past Year

I debated whether or not to write this post because there have been many things in the past year that I wish would have gone differently and that I would have done differently.

Needless to say, it has not been a smooth year.  By this time last year, I had decided that I did not want to become a full-time church musician. Between classes, my senior recital, and everything else that was happening my final semester of college, there was little I could do to change direction.  I was terrified of the fact that, come the day after graduation, I would have absolutely no plan for came next.  For the first few days after graduation, I was paralyzed:  I barely left my apartment and got very little packed for the move home.  The apartment was a disaster because my parents had already taken all of my furniture, leaving stuff scattered all over the place.

It was a couple of weeks later that I finally moved back home.  Home brought it's own challenges.  Since my freshman year, I've lived largely out of boxes in the guestroom.  I hate living out of boxes.  Despite my best efforts, I can never remember exactly where I've packed anything.

In five years, my family has changed just about as much as I have.  As such, I've had a hard time connecting with them.  I think one of the best decisions I made was to find a different church to call home.  It's given me the opportunity to meet new people.  I also have been going to counseling. For me, it's been a wonderful blessing to get an outside perspective on what I've been going through and to talk about some of the issues I've been struggling with.

It's been a rough year, but this period of my life is almost past.  I know for sure that I will be starting a PhD program in mathematics this fall, although I'm still not one hundred percent sure where.  I am very much looking forward to moving to a new place, meeting new people, and being once again in an academic environment.