A friend of mine recently made a comment in her latest blog post about her previous goals and achievements and how her life has changed, now that those goals are now not achievable. I was thinking about this the night before she had posted. What were my goals prior to my accident and where is my life going now?
To begin with; I’ve always had a passion for sport and exercise and probably from around the time I was 15 or 16, I began to have an interest in health too. In year 10 we had a seemingly silly PE elective that was mandatory and didn’t have a good reputation from previous years. However this PE subject which was mostly about fitness with two physical classes each week, and this is when I decided I’d change my life around. During the course of this subject I went from an overweight teenager, who although enjoyed netball and many other team sports, was not technically“fit”, to a student who was enthusiastic about fitness and health, with a teacher who not only encouraged me personally but helped me gain control over my body again. From this I went onto achieve many things including a couple of Great Victorian Bike Rides!
So I guess you could say I knew exactly what I wanted to be since year 10, and that goal hasn’t changed since.
Throughout VCE I undertook in a subject called Outdoor education and environmental studies. I thoughourly enjoyed not only the physical aspects of this subject such as camping, hiking, rock climbing, surfing etc, but also learning about the environment such as the different ecosystems around us, and what we can do to help them. After VCE, I enrolled in a university course of this nature, Outdoor education at La Trobe University. I deferred this course for a year for many reasons, one of which was my dad had been diagnosed with cancer again (for the 4th or 5th time), and I wasn’t ready to leave home. Throughout the year I had off my goals did not change. I even volunteered back at my old high school to help out with the outdoor ed program throughout the year. When it came time to ensure my place back in University, I found that they had begun a new course that was a double major of both Phys ed and Outdoor ed under an education degree. Absolutely perfect! I thought I’d struck gold and become the luckiest person alive when I was accepted. Particularly when I had to apply as a mature age student and only had one of nine places to fill for the non-year 12’s!
I had a pretty successful first semester and in second semester of my first year I had my accident. I continued for another year and a half taking withheld grades for the subjects I couldn’t complete because of the physical demands, and I continued to believe I was going to get better. By the time I had reached my 3rd year of a 4 year course, my health in regard to my hip was going downhill fast. I took a year off, and after some deep thought decided to enrol in a double major of phys ed and HEALTH. It was very similar to my previous course, it was at the same campus, and best yet I could carry my completed PE subjects into the new course, making me have an almost complete PE major before I had even started a new 4 year course.
(2006 Alps trip, La Trobe Uni, Bendigo)Once again, I had an even more successful first semester of uni, gaining high distinctions in 3 out of 4 subjects and missing out on the 4th HD by only a few marks. By second semester, things had begun to unravel once again. The same story of which you have been previously reading about in earlier blog posts once again consumed my life and pushed out my studies. Now the New Year has begun, and once again I’m awaiting my now 4th hip surgery. My expectancy of my goal of becoming a PE/health teacher is declining.
I’m a good student. My grades have shown that. I’m passionate about my subjects and what they are about. However….
I wonder how much more my body can take. I wonder how much more I can emotionally take and most recently what will my future hold? Will I be able to complete my university studies? Will I be able to spend the 8am to 5pm maybe even until 7pm days surrounded by students? Can I handle that? Emotionally and physically? I promised myself I’d never be a teacher who stood on the sidelines. I always planned to be actively involved because I think the ones that do make the best teachers.
I’ve spent the better part of just over three years on heavy prescription pain meds, and I’m unsure for how much longer I will be on them. I have a decent amount of nerve damage in my left leg which means that I can only achieve 2/3rd’s of the strength the other leg can have, in other words, I’ve lost of 30% of my strength output. I’m now on anti-depressants (much to my despair) because I had reached a point where I can no longer emotionally deal with my physical pain.
I may have only been talking about one goal here, but it is a major part of my life right now and I’ve been thinking a lot about it. A lot of effort and time has gone into this goal, and many achievements have been made. It’s not only my time and effort, but those of my high school teachers, my lecturers, and my family and friends for getting me to this point.
I feel I have achieved so much, but yet I’m so far away from where I want to be. I had planned to study oversea's during first semester of my 3rd year. Will I ever get there? I am about to take more time off from my uni studies to recover from surgery and to come off the medication. Whats next for me? Am I destined to do what i've wanted to do for the last 7 years of my life?
It's hard enough worrying about having enough money to pay rent and the bills, in a home i hardly live in, let alone what does the future hold?
Take care and much love,
Jen xx
PS: post allows annoyomous comments