As I am writing my last post as an intern, it’s weird to think that a year ago I was terrified that I would never find an internship. I was worried that I wouldn’t become an MT-BC and that all my years of school and hard work were for nothing. At this point in time last year, I had been finished with my coursework portion of undergrad for four months and sending out internship applications for over twice as long. It’s not an exaggeration to say I was starting to feel doomed. Mindset is everything though.
I told myself that everyone moves at different rates and that everyone’s journey is different. This became a mantra I repeated to myself even when I didn’t quite believe it.
The pressure of the imagined timeline
Having a different timeline is hard though. My coursework took me five and a half years. I struggled with my health and couldn’t do the 20 credit hours a semester that my peers were doing. I watched them finish their coursework in four years, and although I knew my circumstances were different than theirs, it made me angry and embarrassed that I couldn’t adhere to the same timeline I felt like everyone else was on.
Even after finishing my coursework, it felt like I just couldn’t live by the same timeline as everyone else. I thought I had secured an internship only for it to fall through. Everything fell through and before I knew it I was back home looking for any job so I could afford rent. I was so sure I wanted to go out of state and that I wouldn’t find an internship in Illinois. I let myself believe that I was the only student to struggle so hard to find an internship. At some point I decided that I was going to get an internship even if I had to go to the other side of the country and it took me a million years. I put all this time and effort into it and it was still my dream so it was going to happen.
Timing
It was good that I was home though. We almost lost my grandpa twice. If I had been out of state I would not have made it back home in time. Sometimes things just fall into place. For me this internship fell into place. I had reached out before while I was still doing coursework and they weren’t taking interns. As sort of a hail-mary I reached out near the end of last summer to see if they were taking any interns and they responded that they were considering it. Obviously it worked out. I thought I would end up here at MTC when I was in undergrad and wildly enough I did when both MTC and myself were in the right time and place.
It has really made me think about timing and opportunities falling into place. So many times in my life I have wanted something so bad and not gotten it only for the right thing to come along later. Coming back around to mindset, I like to look for the positives in the situation and while I don’t believe everything happens for a reason, I think some things do. I think though it was upsetting that I didn’t get to stick to the timeline I thought I was supposed to be living, it happened the way it needed to. Had I forced myself to do 20 credits a semester I would have never graduated or have taken the class where I met one of the most important people in my life. Had I gotten that first internship, I would have been too far away to have come home when I was needed.
While thinking bout this a while back during my internship I wrote some ideas of lyrics to a song that I never finished:
“I thought it was the ticking of a clock,
But it was really everything clicking into place.
Felt like I was running, running, running.
Trying to catch up.
Trying to prove myself.
Trying to be where I thought I was supposed to be.
Every step was a choice
Was a battle I fought.
I’ve worked so hard.
I’ve earned what I’ve got.
No one’s gonna ask how long the journey took.
How many losses I withstood.
They’ll just see me.
That I’m where I’m meant to be.
Surrounded by love.
That I love me.
And I love who I’m going to be.â€
Thoughts
None of this has been easy. I have worked my hind quarters off for everything and now I am looking at my last week of internship. If you take anything away, I hope that it is the fact that you are not behind and to not give up. Everyone is on their own time and journey. The clock is not running out.
-GraceAnne
