Not Everything Has to be a Crisis

The other morning I went downtown, where I first stopped in at my favorite coffee shop, Floyd’s. I had a giant americano, sat in a comfy chair, and read my book club book for a long, relaxing while. Then I packed up and took the train down to PSU to go another round with the financial aid office. This time, they solved the problems and fixed them, only to inform me that the only financial aid I will be receiving is the student loan money, as I technically make too much money now that I am technically married. I am married for health insurance purposes, recently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, and if I get divorced and don’t have health insurance than I’ll be forced to pay for it through the school for way more money. Also, it doesn’t matter now that I make less money than I didn’t on that particular tax year, because they’ll only adjust in that situation if the pay decrease is involuntary – i.e. if I got fired from my better job. Which I didn’t. It just destroyed my physical and mental health over three years and I felt leaving was the healthiest choice for me. So….that means the small amount I get every quarter from student loans isn’t enough to cover my expenses, especially this quarter as it has extra charges that aren’t on a normal quarter’s charges. I told the soulless demon assisting me that I would just drop out and be uneducated, flew into a caffeine-fueled psycho-rage, and stormed out.

Once I got home I channeled my frustration into cleaning the house, which I did in record time and then found myself with little to do but sit quietly and consider my plight. School starts in five days. I don’t feel at all prepared. I can’t afford textbooks. Even if I rallied my family to help me out I just wouldn’t get off to a great start. I decided that I would drop my spring classes, work on saving up money to help pay the difference starting with the fall quarter, and in the meantime challenge myself to finish my writing project by the time fall quarter started. With that decided, I suddenly felt a lot better. I had been about to let myself go off the deep end, focused on how difficult it has been to get my education and having to endure yet another obstacle. Instead, I turned it into an opportunity to motivate myself.

I dropped all but one class, and that certainly had an effect on my account summary. I’m waiting, now that I’m part-time, to see what the adjusted student loan for part time will look like, but with only a few days left I might not get to find out if I could just take the one class before I would have to start attending it. If my account updates accordingly before I have to actually attend a class and it still covers the costs of tuition, then I will take the one class. If it doesn’t, or the account doesn’t update in time, then I’ll just drop this last class and focus on the fall. Either way, I have a plan, I have a goal, and I’m just going to keep working towards it.