Ali Fernand – Managing Editor
One thing I am sure every college student has struggled with is the balance between schoolwork and their own life. This has particularly been a struggle that has opened my mind as my mother has gotten sick. I need to prioritize my education as it is my future. However, the health of my mother calls time into question.
Sometimes life has bad timing. I am at the point where I am going to need to seriously consider what I am going to do with my life. I am at the end of my college career and juggling with the approaching deadlines for future pursuits. I must figure out how I am going to manage that timeline. It will approach faster than I am prepared for.
However, the deadlines for the relationships in my life are not as predictable. I cannot set an exact date for when to prioritize the care I give to my mom. The time I get with her is unpredictable, the doctors are not fortune tellers. I cannot make perfect decisions when to focus on my family over schoolwork or vice-versa.
Everyone tells me I need to take everything day by day. I agree, but at the same time, I could not tell you what the next day has in store for me. That should not be a terrible thing. We are all dealing with things as they come. There is no way we can predict our lives and deal with it perfectly.
It is hard not to make mistakes. Especially when situations get suddenly thrown towards me. Sometimes the human brain has a weird way of reacting. We were not born immune to sadness or delusion. Whether you are prone to mental illness or not, humans are able to have faults.
Mistakes and hardships feel hard to navigate in college life. A difficult day feels like the end of any chance of a successful life. Needing one day to focus on life feels like a permanent stain on any professional progress.
I cannot choose when I have bad days. Sometimes it falls on important deadlines. Sometimes time management cannot save me from the serious situation’s life presents.
Services on campus can only do so much. It is hard to find exactly what office is meant to help me communicate my needs with my professors. Something like chronic illness is not predictable, and it can make me seem inconsistent and lazy. However, everyone who knows me well would say the opposite. That is not who I am, and I would like to think most other people are also not that type of person.
Growing up, most people have a vision that their college years will be perfect. The only troubles I expected were getting through my classes and the relationships I would have. However, I did not imagine that my own mother’s life would come into play. I do not think anyone who is in their 20’s expects to prepare for the loss of their own mother.
It feels good that I could get support for any mental illness I suffer from. However, there is no system that helps students navigate their education, future and the current state of their own life.