End of an Era...Sort Of.

And.....SEND!

"No more school, no more books, no more teachers, dirty looks!"

Kinda.....for now.

Having had one more paper left hanging from my last class that ended in December, I finally polished it off and hit that SEND button just minutes ago.

My last paper for the year.

As I breathe heavily and glance soulfully at the papers and textbooks strewn around me, I try to collect my feelings of.....accomplishment?  Of dread? Of forlornness?

My feelings are mixed: like waiting for the other shoe to drop, I'm waiting for the jubilee I expected from completing my final assignment before my pending maternity leave from work and school, but it's just not coming.  It's like I'm missing something: is it a fear? A fear of a lack of purpose in life?  Perhaps not a fear of a lack of purpose but perhaps a fear of being rejected from the life I knew, a built-up, dream-like state of academia life and being lost within my real reality, of family and obligations.

Is that wrong?

School will be there for me next January when I resume my degree, and although it's difficult to envision now, next January will come around so fast I'll likely be cursing the passage of time and longingly look back to what the future holds for me today.

So, as parallelisms go, as I gather my papers and close my books, I end another chapter in my life and open another one.  Instead of going to classes, taking notes, writing papers, one thing that will remain the same are my group projects, albeit of a different kind.

My group will now consist of my husband, my two little boys and my new little girl who arrives in 3 weeks, and my new projects will be more colourful, likely messy and dysfunctional, and most definitely more satisfying than I could possibly imagine.