Between Here and There

I feel like I've been in purgatory for the past few years.  I live in this in-between place working to finish school, waiting for funding to stabilize so I can have a promotion, and wishing my life was less hectic.  This semester has been the hardest, so far.  Two classes with one being very high maintenance.  (That's code for "the professor is a dick.")  Combine that with a very, very busy April and I am down to my last weekend with a 30 page paper to write and two days in which to finish it.  M is taking the kids to my mom and dad's and I will  stay at home and write a very mediocre paper. 

I know the finish line is within sight.  I know that this time next year, I will be finishing my last course and walking away with a Master's in HR, but I am so tired and missing some of the confidence that I had when I started.  It was so much easier when I was in high school or even an undergrad.  There were cheerleaders everywhere; parents, classmates, and teachers were all available to tell me I was smart and that I could do it.  Now?  Now I'm a mom, I work full time, and I am expected to have the inner fortitude to man-up and get it done.  Grad school is an every-man-for-himself kind of place.  Everyone works and everyone has a completely separate life outside of school.  There are no cheerleaders, just professors that sort of care, but mostly they would like you to shut-up and just do the work.

People always say to me, "I don't know how you do it."  I'm not sure that I'm really doing a very good job at work, home, or school.  If you are willing to do everything kind of half-assed, you can appear to do whatever you want!  My only other choice is to walk away, and I am way too close to being finished to really do that, although I fantasize about quitting school almost every day.  I am ready to have my life back.  I am ready to read books that aren't about employment law and dedicate more time to the Foundation.  I miss my friends, online and IRL, and I am ready to stop feeling like I have been a terrible friend to many people that I care about.  I am ready to just be a working mom instead of a working mom in school who must be crazy to do all of this.

If this really is my purgatory then I can only hold out hope that all of this torment will lead to heaven on the other side.  A heaven with a promotion and time to spend with my family on the weekends.  And wine.  Heaven must have wine.