Shell Shocked

Lately I am amazed at how tired I am.

My heart is tired and my spirit is tired.
The past 3 years have been excruciating in many ways. Don't get me wrong, there were abundant blessings throughout it all. But there has been a lot of struggle as well. Matthew and I knew that we were taking on a challenge of significant proportions when we decided to both be full-time students for the first few years of our marriage. I don't think we knew just how enormous of a commitment this was though. By this, I mean that we underestimated the size of our commitment to school; and not that we underestimated our commitment to marriage. Although that has its own unique challenges, I feel like we were prepared for that challenge - but not for the toll that the intensity of school on each of us as an individual and as a couple. It was an unreal experience and I don't know if I would recommend it to other couples; if anybody asks me in the future, I pledge to be brutally honest with them to try to convey what our experience has been.
After our wedding in May 2007, we had four months of just being married and living. It was wonderful! And then September hit. On the first day of school, I flew up the stairs of our old basement suite, coffee in hand. Running late, I hit the third stair from the top, at the wrong angle and with abundant velocity, and my coffee and I went soaring into Matthew, the stairs, and the door. Perhaps that was an omen of the chaos to come in the next three years:
- Two sets of midterm and final schedules
- Two sets of assignments and papers
- Two GPAs to nurture to an appropriate level above 80% (minimum)
- Two sets of notes and powerpoint slides to print each night (at the expense of countless trees)
- Two types of study habits: one characterized by extensive note taking/copying and memorizing into the wee hours of the morning, and the other characterized by calm textbook reading accompanied by various colours of highlighters, in the comfy leather chair, with a pre-scheduled bath and bed time of 9:30 pm. (Can you guess which is which?!)
- Two individuals riddled with near constant stress, causing frequent sleepless nights, night sweats, floor pacing, headaches, and even occasional chest pains
- Two bodies who let their muscles atrophy while sitting at desks for 12 hours a day
- Two schedules of random part-time shifts whenever possible
- One joint bank account that grew accustomed to no income for the majority of each semester, because study schedules demanded every waking hour of attention

This is a snap-shot of our past three years. Now, I realize that many people have gone to school and I am certainly not trying to say that we've had it worse than most. Certainly not. In fact, before this experience I can honestly say that I didn't understand why so many people drop out of university. I probably thought that I understood, but I didn't. The biggest lessons that we learned from all of this is the necessity of sticking together and the necessity strong social networks (our family and friends). We could not have done it alone. The other thing I've recently learned is the necessity of rest. It is good and it brings much needed perspective.