quarter-life crisis on crack

my mom has cancer. again. there, i said it. and that's not even all of it. i really have no idea what i want to do with my life. there. is that all of it? ...i think that's everything.

i've never been a big journal-er, or ever in a million years thought i would be a "blogger," but i have enough on my mind that i think it just might help to get it all out. well, that and hopefully some of this resonates with someone out there, and they won't feel as alone as i have.

this is actually the second time my mom has gotten cancer. the first time was in the end of august 2005, about 3 weeks before i started grad school. the first time, i was scared but i had no choice but to just muscle through. i went home as much as i could, and concentrated as hard as i could on not failing out of school... and it turns out, mom survived, got better, and i got all As. of course.

fast forward 2.5 years, and here we are again. except this time i have no distraction. i realized about two months ago that grad school is making me miserable. i think it's a pretty typical "quarter-life crisis" - but instead of waxing existential and being angsty while staying employed, i instead full out panicked. in between panic attacks, i realized that it didn't make any sense to stay in school just for the sake of it, and realized i needed a break. apparently that's a "brave" thing to do, but for me it was a matter of survival: the more i thought about taking time off, the calmer i became. easy.

i had surgery to repair a broken bone in my foot, and really relished the mental time off... which just confirmed my decision to take a mental health break. however, as i recovered, i began to stress again about finding a job. well, stress isn't the right word. panic is more like it. see a trend here?

i suppose the one good thing about this new cancer diagnosis is that it put the quarter-life panic to rest real quick... by replacing it with new panic.

fear aside, this has definitely put my priorities in order. i am spending much more time working on keeping things in perspective, valuing the time i have with my mom and the rest of my friends and family, and just generally trying to chill.

we'll see how well that goes....