I had kept these things knowing that one day, in my stats-ey job, these notes and programming code I had written would be helpful. So that's how I did that, etc. Well, yeah, don't want that career anymore so keep it? Because of that small chance that I magically am healed tomorrow and decide to sack all of this inner finding stuff and go get that job. At least it pays well. And I could get back on my feet. yada yada yada. Wrong answer. That little sliver is still so hard to let go of even though I know it is the right thing to do.
I spent quite a while looking through old tests, old projects and papers and remembering just how much work I put into them and how many all-nighters I used to pull. I would say, on average, at least 2 a week. Yep. Two full nights slaving away only to run home for a shower (on a good day) and then work the next 18. NO WONDER I'M SICK. eish. I remember frantically running from my office to my car and then into school to print out my paper that was due in 57 seconds only to find a low ink notice. I was just alway shaking, always so stressed and stretched so thin that there was no way of ever even slightly looking like I had it together.
I found that Calculus 3 test. The infamous test. I was doing a summer at BYU-Hawaii and I had a huge test on my 21st birthday. I remember that I had studied over 70 hours for this test - I did all I could do to prepare for it. I got in the testing center, said a prayer and started at it. 8.5 hours later - I walked out, officially of legal age and all. That's how hard I worked - I just couldn't give up and kept reworking each problem until I was sure it was all correct. I went to Foodland, bought myself a piece of cake and took it to the beach to enjoy at sunset. I was proud of myself because I knew how much I put into it. I still am. And when that 69.3 grade came back, I remember crying because my best just never seemed good enough. Yeah, that test got chucked the other night.
In my sorting, papers just started flying into the trash. paper after paper, code after code. It brought back so many bad memories of me working so hard, yet accomplishing so little and always feeling like the dumbest kid in the class. Always treading water, always just trying to pass and keep from running away to a hippie colony before finals were over. I would read and read and study and study and I might has well had been reading Chinese, it made that little sense to me.
How I did 6 years of this nonsense, I have no idea but am grateful for the clarity now to know that it is okay to walk away from it. It is so okay and feel so wonderful. I think something about math that appealed to me so much is that there is always a perfectly right answer, you just have to find it. You are either right or wrong, there is no gray and I think I was drawn to the safety of that. Oh well. There are things some of us are going to be good at, other things we just aren't (no matter how hard we try), and that's perfectly fine.
Well, long story short all two boxes got trashed. Well, they were dramatically carried to the curb at 1am so there would be no chance of me changing my mind, no chance that I would ever go back down that road. I ended up only keeping my thesis and a calculus test from high school that I got a 94 on. Those I kept. The rest are gone and I'm okay with it. My education taught be patience, problem-solving, time-management, and pure grit and for that I'm proud. The rest is on the damn curb.
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