For the last few years, this would have been the time of year where I start getting ready for the upcoming semester. I would have been checking (and double-checking, and triple-checking) my schedule, making sure I bought the books I needed, and looking through the syllabus to take a look at what the next few months of my life would be like. Even though I was only a part-time student, each new semester, but especially the fall semester, still felt like a new, fresh start.

But now that I’ve graduated (see this post), there’s no more new semester. It’s strange, though because it doesn’t really… feel any different? Time just feels so odd for me right now – not only is it hard for me to imagine that it would be time for a new semester, it’s even harder to imagine that I won’t be starting one!

Part of it is probably that my graduation doesn’t really feel real, either. I did officially get my diploma in the mail a few weeks ago, so I know that it actually did happen, but I haven’t had a moment yet where it has hit me that it happened. As excited as I was to finish my masters – and believe me, I was VERY excited – it doesn’t feel exactly like I thought it would.

And knowing that I’m done with school doesn’t feel like I thought it would, either. I was really looking forward to the extra free time, the ability to enjoy summer weekends and really relax, to never having to balance having lots of fun plans with leaving time for my assignments… and then all of that just kind of went away.

So, basically, nothing feels like I expected it to! It’s just one more thing to adjust to turning out differently this year. In the scheme of everything going on, believe me, I know that this isn’t a big deal. I still think it’s okay, though, to acknowledge disappointment – to take a moment to acknowledge that basically, nothing this year has gone the way that I thought it would. Everything is relative – I hate when people act like there’s some sort of competition, like there’s some sort of judgments being made about what kinds of things people are “allowed” to be upset about. 

There is no normal this year, really. So allow yourself to be disappointed about things that didn’t go as planned. If you don’t take the time to sit with it, and to acknowledge it, it makes it so much harder to let it go and move on from it.

I guess this post is just a bit of a brain-dump – and I think I’m also starting to sound a lot like a Headspace meditation! But I think that everyone can use the reminder right now that it’s okay to be upset or disappointed or even just feel different than you expected to. There’s so much going on! Take some time to feel your feelings if that’s what you need – there’s really no right or wrong way to deal with things right now.