Not on My Timeline

I put it out there on Facebook this morning... today was the deadline. It really is a deadline. Today is the absolute deadline for hiring Fall graduate assistants at the University. My job kept waiting to hear that the hold on my admission had been lifted, but the call/email never came. I learned this afternoon that the news will not come for another several days, we can stop waiting, the deadline will pass us by. What it means for my job, I don't know. Grad assistants are supposed to technically start Monday under contract. My benefits are supposed to start the 16th. Since I am not technically a student, I cannot be hired and I cannot be paid, nor can I earn any of the other benefits of a graduate assistant. It won't stop me from coming to work everyday. It's just going to make a lot more work for my supervisor and the organization's secretary to process me in once they are able to. I have no idea what it will look like, how long it will take, and what it will all mean, but I am not giving up hope!

I guess I look at all this stuff and must look at the bright side - I have not been told that my admission is being denied. All I am told is that it is on "hold." It is not on hold indefinitely. It has left the graduate school, now, and sits before a "committee" who is assigned to make a decision on every graduate student who applies to the University with a felony in their background. At this point, I am being held up against the same principles and rules as every other 'similarly situated' applicant, I guess I'm really okay with that. Perhaps I'm more, or perhaps I'm less of a scary character than others. Who knows?!?! Well, in reality, I'm not sure I could be more harmless than I am, but whatever it is they choose to consider from my file, will be fine. With multiple people on a committee, I pray it's not just an arbitrary decision. I should know early next week.

I have no idea if anyone reading this even cares if I get back into school or not. I don't even know why anyone reads this blog at this point. I sometimes feel like I am partially fighting this fight for all of us with felonies and/or addictions in recovery. I want us to be able to say that we do not need to be defined by our pasts. We watch famous people be able to move on and forward so easily from these things, but lay people are never given the benefit of the doubt. We need to constantly prove ourselves and defend our choices. We always have more and more hoops to jump through. The fight is exhausting, but if I can do, and if I can succeed, than I can be proof that others can do it too. We need some of us willing to jump through all the hoops in order to help others know that they just need to keep jumping. So, I'm jumping, and jumping, and jumping. I started jumping at Carswell and I had no idea how fit I'd need to be to continue to jumping once I was home.

There are so many times when I see dead end ahead warnings. Somehow, though, my gut tells me to just forge ahead, there may be a yield, but I can get past the roadblock. Perseverance, passion, belief, honesty, drive, character, humility, gratitude, acceptance, patience, and focus can help a lot. I do my best to never doubt the end goal. I am going to school in Fall. I am working this job. I may be on "hold," but that's just a formality, and it's only temporary. It's just another hoop. I will be going, I am just not able to do it all on my timeline.