Done and Done

The big things are finally done. In the last 24 hrs, my residence permit card has arrived and I received and accepted my housing offer and paid my deposit. Two more weeks of work and I am off to Turku. I will put my car up for sale starting tomorrow. Somehow it doesn't feel real, but I've also settled into it all. Even though, I don't exactly know what "it" is. I mean, I know what my program encompasses and where I want to go with it. I know the program is very rigorous. I think more than anything, I still can't believe I'm doing this. I can't believe it took me this long. So I actually can believe I'm doing this, I just get mad that I didn't have more confidence in myself. Then I'm mad that I'm dwelling on the past. Yes, that's a lot, I know. I really look forward to the heavy course load to redirect all of this brain matter.

Me and dad have been talking. It's very halted and hard to do. I bring in the mail and ask him how his day was. It's time to put my car up for sale and I ask him how to proceed. He always responds. I can read his body language. He's still not handling my leaving very well. But maybe like me, he doesn't want me to leave with us on such bad terms. I don't know how that will go. It's a start and that's all I want really.

Where are you going and what are you doing???

So picking up where I left off. Everything went really quickly from there. Emailing happened over the next two hours and Classmate was like, "I'm finna call YOU!" Right now? From Finland? Bruh, what time is it there!?! Fair warning, Classmate does not sound like that. He's very laid back actually and I'd freak out if he said any of these things in real like. He doesn't even curse, which is why I wonder why he's friends with my loud, vulgar ass. Anyway!! That's just how I'm hearing it in my head. This was a lot y'all. It was and still is a lot. An hour and half later, I had basically been told, "you need to get smooth the fuck outta there. Come get this master's degree and use that as a springboard to greatness and just thrive bitch thrive!!!!" He was sure I'd get accepted. Applications were due in two months. Ummm, whet!?!? I was trying to convince myself to even get off the couch. I was failing. I was so confused. I was so drained by everything in my life and this sounded like a great opportunity and I was just so tired. Too tired to move forward. By the way, that's what depression does to you. Get help. Sometimes you can't just fix shit by yourself.

So, Finland was now an option. Or at least I should make it an option. Finland's there. In northern Europe, so I should think about it? Why won't Classmate stop emailing me!?!! That was my brain at the time. I didn't know what I would do next outside of filling out an application. I knew I couldn't stay at my current job. I was not embracing the choice to settle into working at the conglomerate of a company. Why isn't this money making me happy?!?!? I had spent years as a broke journalist and convinced myself that was the missing factor. And back to Finland. It took a minute to calm my mind and just start to look over the programs more thoroughly. Being a history buff, I looked up the history of the country, which I knew nothing about. It was a part of a couple of empires before becoming an independent country in 1917. It's cold as hell there, which I later learned from personal experience. Small population, super hard language. None of this was making me gung ho for the country. I wasn't the most adventurous person before all of this shit I was going through. And where are the black people!?!? I asked Classmates this. Helsinki was the most diverse. I would not be in Helsinki.

Noooooope, nope, nope NOAP! If you hadn't noticed, I was looking for something you put the breaks on all this nonsense. Classmates' so crazy. I went to church that Sunday and told my aunt everything, from the two phone conversations, the email and the fact that I was paralyzed. She said she would pray and knowing that I had been in therapy in the past, she told me to consider seeing someone, even if was to just talk to our pastor and his wife. They both have master's in psychology and are big on promoting mental health. We fail miserably at it here in the U.S. Just the talk was a weight off of my shoulders. Also, she was so sure I'd be accepted.

I'll be honest, I was getting a little angry at that point. Mainly at myself. Like, why the hell can't I have the same level of confidence in myself that everyone else does? This is garbage! I decided, just take the next step, which would be reading the application requirements and process. I'd have help after that. I was terrified, but something, ANYTHING had to change. And it needed to be big. I was in a comfort zone. A miserable, depressed ass zone. Because let's be honest "comfort zone" is the wrong term. But I had settled into a very unhappy situation and despite how unhappy, I had resigned myself to sit there. Even with a possible out, I was just frozen. That first step took a lot. I had to keep telling myself, you'd only be losing some time. After about the 700th (seriously, it was a lot!!!) I actually started.

Officially official

Last week I learned I was accepted as a full-time student at the University of Turku School of Economics. I will be getting my master's degree in Futures Studies with a minor in Entrepreneurship. I plan to focus on environmental justice and sustainability. When I say this has been a rollercoaster ride that hasn't ended, I mean it! It's been filled with many trials, most still ongoing, and with three months until I leave, it'll continue to be a bumpy road. To take you back to the beginning of all this, it started a year a half ago thanks to some crazy men in my life pushing me out of my comfort zone.

It was the the end of 2014, and I was working a job that I really hated and I had been in touch with one of my favorite college professors via social media. He would always ask what I was doing and I would pretty much ignore the question because it really was a whole lot of nothing. In the middle of 2011, I had been laid off from my job as a journalist and in those three years, I had been applying like crazy, getting no response and going from one terrible job to the next. In my current position, I worked for a major telecommunications company. The money was good. The job was soul draining. A year in, I had resigned myself to making a career here. I'd use my funds for things I loved away from work: Running, I had enough money and off time for more destination races. Homebrewing: something I had written about extensively and I loved the home brewing community in my city and state.

I felt that was a shitty compromise, but I took it. I felt quite broken at the time. Until then, I had had a job since I was 15, either part-time or full-time. Even though other people were also laid off, I was sure I had fallen short somewhere and could have saved MY job. All these years later, some evil voice in the back of my head tries to creep in with those thoughts, but I've done better at quickly declaring that the devil is a lie!! I've come too far to believe such foolishness. I do still occasionally think it and have to check myself to stop the falsehoods. Hey, I never said I wasn't human. I try not to be though. I usually fail.

Back to the story. I had thrown myself into training for a triathlon only to run into my professor at the gym with his kids. As per his usual self, he declared we'd be talking soon. A few days later, an hour long call revealed all of the nothing that was going on with me. I was "thinking" about getting an MBA. I actually had been thinking about it in the run up to and actualization of the layoff. He mentioned a former classmate who was living overseas and doing quite well. I didn't necessarily have to move overseas, but I needed to "get the hell out of here." I remembered Classmate, who I considered a friend at the time, but I wasn't sure if he remembered me and asked professor to send a group email. He remembered me and the classes we took together. I was surprised.

We caught up and I learned about his awesome wife and baby daughter, then he got down to business. If I was looking for something business related that would translate well to the real world, I did need to consider coming to Finland for school. By "consider," he meant, "I'm going to bombard you with emails about different schools in Finland." And when I say "bombard," I mean seven to twenty emails a day. The first couple of weeks, I just clicked through most of his emails or responded to humor him. Classmate was always a bit of an odd duck anyway. Also, Finland??? Who and why? I barely knew the where. Thank you History degree. At least, I know where it is on the map. But of course,  I was already a year into a job I hated, still trying to accept the choice I made to settle. It couldn't hurt to read a few program descriptions right?