The End of an Era

Being pregnant causes a weird haze around school that just doesn’t seem to go away. Being a week and a half away from graduation, I feel like I should be feeling more nostalgic. BUt quite honestly, I haven’t even felt like it's the end. Each day is another list of To Do’s that seem impossible to reach because I am just so overcome by pregnancy fatigue and pregnancy brain. I’m either tired or can’t seem to put together any sentence academically that seems correct or even makes sense. 

Rather than assignments filling my head, its baby stuff. A constant, What do I still need to buy? Is it too early to start doing baby laundry? I need to call about ____. 

As I march towards graduation and know that I need to be getting assignments done, attending classes, and just reminiscing about my time in college, I am instead feeling like I am pulled in all kinds of directions. It doesn’t help that I also get very easily distracted by the wiggles and kicks of the babies. No matter what time of day it is, I will stop everything I am doing just to feel those kicks and poke back. Not seeing the babies is such a weird experience as I am trying to learn their personalities a bit and yet they don’t have much room to express it yet. So all I do get are the little kicks and rolls. 

But each assignment that I turn in, and each class that I attend reminds me that I am finishing something that I have been working so hard to achieve. I think back to my freshman self and it’s crazy to think of how different I was then. I was single and just worried about fitting in and making friends. And somehow in the past four years I navigated changing my major, getting engaged and married, and now I am pregnant with twins! 

Last night I attended the Senior banquet for the Theology department and I think as I listened to everyone talk about what they learned and what they will take with them, I realized that these people have helped shape me and somehow after this next week, I won’t see them again. Of course there is still social media and the technology at our hands that keeps us connected but I won’t be seeing these people every day in classes, passing on campus, eating together. We will all go back to the corners of the world that we came from as changed people. 

From that, I think that my next step into motherhood is almost sad because these people aren’t going to meet my children. I won’t be sharing a life with them anymore. Instead, I will be stepping into motherhood surrounded by my family as I learn to take these new steps in life. Thinking of this, I realize that God is working in this transition and I know that as I step into motherhood and start looking into ministry, I will be in new conversations with new people and navigating a new life. 

So I don’t mind the classes that much (the assignments I could probably go without) and as I figure out how to finish the term and step into my next chapter, I am realizing that while I feel pulled every direction and tired and just unable to think, I also need to just sit in the moment and realize that I am finishing something so huge and that I should enjoy it. Because I am going to have time to prep for babies, and have a lifetime of mothering, but I only have this week left of a chapter that has shaped me into everything I am. So despite the rush to finish, I am going to just try and enjoy it. There may be tears but thats okay. It's an end of an era.