Saturday, November 8, 2014

Thunderstorms of Life

I think, at least once, people question what they are doing with their lives. Am I headed down the right career path? Am I headed in the right direction? What's going to happen to me in the next ____? Well, apparently senior year of college is the best time to have this thought overwhelm you as you write your final capstone for your major. Right?

WRONG.

But of course, I am asking this question because let's face it, my struggles seem to slap me in the face every school year around the final half (or even quarter) of the semester. Things are getting tough, my want to do my classwork is fading and all I keep thinking is how great it's going to be when it's all over. But what's going on now?

I'm right in the middle of my senior history thesis. It's the final class and final paper that ties up my history degree in a nice little bow for graduation. Of course, I jumped into the Civil War seminar to try and feed my interests but now I feel like I'm pushing against my returning brick wall of "I can't do this. I'm not as good as everyone else. Why can't I be like everyone else?"

I've talked a lot about my ADHD and my struggles in the classroom on this blog. Even though ADHD is a joke in society and I really push to view it in a positive light, I secretly find myself hating it. Hating myself, hating the people around me who function on a level I could only DREAM of and hating the fact that I'm hating it. Even with my new methods of working and attempts to get my life in order, I cannot change the fact that I do not work like everyone else. I jump around from topic to topic. Things are not in chronological order with me. I have thoughts that burst like strikes of lightning when all I need is "an electric current". Being a historian is clashing with these difficulties, making my every day battle even worse.

My rough draft of my thesis was due and I can honestly say, I have NEVER worked as hard on any other school assignment in my entire life. I have spent days, literally, DAYS doing research when usually I can only stand a few hours. Archives are lonely and quiet. It's just you and your work. For me, it's basically torture. I have stared at a computer screen with words bouncing around in my brain, begging to come out onto the page yet I still reconfigure them over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

 But I fought my way through it and gathered over 100 sources (I'm not kidding...) and now have so much to say...

But how do I say it?


Trying to put my scrambling thoughts on paper in a "coherent narrative" has proved extremely difficult. No matter how many outlines, drafts, re-reads and speech re-writes I have done, I can't seem to get it down. When asked what I mean, I speak my answer better than I write it. But when I write what I speak, it loses its strength. If I can't even write a freaking paper, how in the world am I going to become a Civil War historian? Granted, I'm going into Public History, something that seems more suited to my brain wiring. But what's going to happen when I have to write an exhibit display in a museum? Or an all day tour of a battlefield? How in the WORLD am I going to do that when I can't even get my thoughts in order NOW?!

Long story short, I'm overwhelmed. I'm defeated and I'm frustrated. I listen to others debate around me and have historical discussions that I've started dropping out of. Why? Because my confidence seems to have fizzled out. I find myself questioning, like I have done in the past, why I decided to go into history. Have I doomed myself to a career path that I can't handle? What's going to happen if I can't make it?

Why is everything going wrong?!

Great ADDitudes has also fizzled out, making it extremely difficult to carry it on by myself. Sure, we've had some interest but not a lot of active participants. Not from the college, my friends, even me. I didn't even go to my own meeting last week because I couldn't face another empty classroom for something I've worked really, really hard on. Am I not understanding the world around me like I should? Is there some secret that I just can't find? Because let's face it, I'm different. My brain isn't a constant electrical current. It's a slow brewing thunderstorm with a few strikes of brilliance and then... rain. Lots and lots of rain.

I'm trying to find the beauty in the lightning but right now all I see is the wrath of a curse. I'm hoping within the next few days some time with my family will clear up my stormy sky. But for now, I let it rain.