On the final stretch (prt 2)

Running this race, the 400m race, is similar to the race I've been experiencing during my final year in the graduate school. For instance, when I began my concentration year, I had a blueprint in my mind. The blueprint detailed my plans on receiving straight As, impressing my supervisors and mentors at my field placement, improving my clinical and mezzo level skills, improving my organization and time management skills, and just growing overall as a person.

So I went into the first quarter of the school year strong. I was keeping up with all my assigned readings, participating in classes, getting As on papers and projects, and so on. Life was going according to plan and things were great. But as the Fall semester lingered on, outside incidents involving my family, friends, and colleagues began to slow up my progress and I steadily began to fall behind. Consequently, I couldn't keep up with the readings, I was too stressed to participate in my classes, and my midterm grades were not where I wanted them to be. In a sense, I began to feel like I was gradually losing the race.

But just when everything seemed to be going in a downwards spiral the phone calls began. Inspirational and motivational phone calls from my parents, sisters, and close friends. "Yo, I know you stressin' right now, but you've been doing this for 6 yrs. You're a veteran, you got this man....you didn't come this far to give up now, get your head up and get it done," my best friend Chris said one Friday evening. He was right. I had indeed come far. I had endured many personal trials and tribulations and I was still standing. In retrospect, these encouraging words were just what I needed to hear from my loved ones at that point in the semester. Picking up my pace, I gradually got back on track. And by the end of the Fall semester I was slowly gaining ground, step by step.

Entering into that final turn of the Spring semester, my previous efforts were suddenly detoured when my supervisor became gravely ill and was forced to go on medical leave for the rest of the school year. I was devastated. He had been my mentor, the social work professional I had someday hoped to be, and now he was gone. But despite his absence and struggling financially amongst other things, I told myself I had to keep my head up and keep moving. And that's exactly what I did. I continued to see all my clients, attend meetings with adminstrators, hold parent conferences, get my school work completed, and participate in my classes. Matter of fact, I even increased my caseload to motivate me to work that much harder. The month of March was coming to an end, and I felt myself gathering what track athletes refer to as that "second-wind" to make it to May 11th, 2007.

Today is April 10th, 2007 and I find myself strategically weaving through all my final papers, projects, presentations, and job interviews towards to reach my ultimate goal--graduation. From the very beginning, it was never an easy race. It was one with its ups and downs, its failures and successes. It was a race characterized by sleepless nights of anxiety and isolated tears of frustration. I had always had the desire to finish the race, but never knew exactly how I would finish, or if I would have the perserverance to do so. But here I am today, standing firm with a ingenius grin on my face, neck and neck with life and all of its unknowns. And for the first time during my 2 years in the Social Work graduate program, I can see myself finishing in first place, walking across that stage on graduation day to win the race.