Reflections: Moving Forward
January 19, 2020
I’ve been working for a while now on getting back on track with my writing after spending the past nine months in a period of introspection and reflection on my life over the past seven years.
Seven years ago, this month I embarked on a mission to get a higher education certificate in Contemporary Communications, which, as I had hoped, pushed me to get my Bachelor of Arts.
I graduated from the University Of Massachusetts Amherst in May 2017 with my B.A. in Digital Communications and Writing through UMass Amherst’s life learning program, University Without Walls. I was 60 years old when I finished that program in December 2016 and I knew I was not finished with school. The following month, I was enrolled at Salem State University’s Master in English – Writing program, which I completed in May 2019.
I had spent six and a half years in school. The beginning of my last semester, a year ago, I was tired and felt as though I was burnt out academically, emotionally and physically. I struggled through my last semester with an ache in my heart. The years I had spent in school were also difficult years fraught with many trials and tribulations in my personal life. I forged through despite it all, pushing back the grief of close friends passing away and the worry of struggling financially as I was in school full-time and living on student aid. My B.A., all completed online, afforded me a little more time for myself than grad school did. When I started at Salem State University, I had never attended a class on campus, and it was daunting at 60 years old. I was commuting an hour each way to classes, and I started working on campus as a writing tutor in the Mary G. Walsh Writing Center and then three semesters in I also worked as a grad assistant in the writing center.
The universe kept testing me throughout my time at Salem State. At the end of the Spring 2018 semester I became homeless when the house I was renting an apartment in went up for sale and I couldn’t find anything in the Amesbury, Massachusetts area that I could afford. During the five months I was homeless, I stayed with a cousin in Newburyport, Massachusetts who is 14 years older than me. It wasn’t an ideal situation for either of us, but I was off the streets and I was grateful for that.
As the beginning of the Fall 2018 semester was drawing close, I ended up having hernia surgery, and three days later my eldest sister, 83 years old, had surgery for a twisted colon. She passed away four days later on September 4, 2018, my first day back at work on campus. I was completely racked by grief when she passed, but I kept forging forward. Much of the first few weeks or more of that semester were a blur. Later in the month I flew to North Carolina for my sister’s funeral and reunited with her three daughters and my two sisters. Then three weeks after that I finally moved into my own place in Salisbury, Massachusetts. Exhausted and distraught, stretched to the max with anxiety and depression I took a week break from school to rest and returned to tough out the semester and my toughest class in the M.A. program, Theory and Criticism of Literature.
Throughout my M.A. I developed a desire to continue on academically either pursuing and MFA in Creative Writing or a PhD in English Comp. I had planned to work on my applications for my next goal during that fall semester and over winter break. But come winter break, I had not even begun to work on applications, and I realized that I was woefully prepared to apply for either. I felt defeated in my ability to move forward. I returned to school in January 2019 to complete my M.A. and my graduate creative writing manuscript (thesis). At that point my goal was simply to finish and get out of school. When all was said and done, my manuscript submitted, and I had passed a French reading proficiency test, I graduated in May feeling disheartened rather than elated by my success despite so many obstacles.
What followed my graduation was a lot of resting, soul searching and little overseas travel, to Sicily. I went up the volcano — Mt Etna and I came home to search for a job.
The job search has been difficult, and after more soul searching and introspection, I applied to one of the MFA programs on January 17 that I had intended to apply to a year ago. I have to say that applying to school two days ago lifted me up and made me feel as though I was back on track. I have one more school to apply to in the next few weeks. Come what may, I hope to be back in school again soon, not only working on my MFA in Creative Writing but also working as a teaching assistant at whichever school I land at.
