Prior to beginning my official classes at Utah Valley University in fall 2015, I took an eight week class during the summer for adults making some kind of transition in their lives. This Successful Life Management class was offered through Turning Point and was held on UVU’s west campus. It was held twice each week and provided good practice for me to become accustomed to driving there and being on a school schedule again. At first, I chose the morning class, but ended up not feeling well one of the mornings. This program required that the class be made up that evening or you had to wait until the next set of classes to complete the program. So I attended the class that evening and it was clear almost immediately that this class was the one I needed to continue attending. The curriculum validated many of the changes I had already made up to that point. Since I was still continuing my visiting journey, it also gave me the opportunity to get to know more people. I made a point to talk with the students before and after class and became friends with two of the women. Sometimes, I talked with the teacher after class as well and felt a strong connection to her.
This class required our attendance, but didn’t have
homework or tests. However, we were each expected to make a poster that described
us, which we would present during the final class. We needed to search
magazines for pictures or words to use for this assignment, since we couldn’t
write anything on it. A friend in our ward gave me a gift subscription to Country
magazine earlier that year and it provided a variety of beautiful pictures
to choose from. I decided to use the four seasons as a theme for my poster and
focused on favorite activities or things I enjoyed about each season. Spring
included pictures of purple wildflowers, daisies, daffodils, and rainbows. It
also included several phrases I pieced
together: “Here comes the sun,” “you can change your life with every step,” “I’m
always amazed by the beauty God made for us,” and “hope after the storm.” Summer
included pictures of water flowing over rocks in a river, lighthouses near
beaches, and sunsets, along with the phrase “walking on sunshine.” Autumn
included pictures of leaves changing colors, blue sky over mountains, and the
view of a full moon looking through Delicate Arch, since most of our family vacations
have included Arches National Park in Moab, Utah. Winter included a picture of
a little boy and girl holding hands while they walked through the snow, which
represented our two children. I also included the phrase “walking in a wonderland”
and a quote: “strong is the tree that bends with the wind then bounces back
again.” That quote reminds me of the importance of flexibility and resilience,
which are two character traits I’m constantly trying to develop. I was really
happy about the way the poster turned out and John suggested that I frame it.
So I stopped at Hobby Lobby on the way home from that last class, splurged, and
had it framed in a large black frame with a medium blue matte. I hung it on the
wall in our bedroom of the previous house and in my office of the new house. It
is like a picture window looking outward to my dreams and a constant reminder
of who I have become.
When I began to take actual college classes, I realized
that I needed to limit myself to six or nine credits each semester, so that I
could save part of my energy for my family and visiting. It would take longer
to earn a degree, but it would allow me to keep some balance in my life over
the coming months and years. The goal to return to college and earn a degree is
among the most difficult challenges I’ve faced and it stretched me beyond what
I thought I could endure a few times. Even though I still had many stressful
moments, I continued to apply the coping skills I learned over the previous
years of challenging myself physically, emotionally, and socially. Another
important element of my success was to attend every class (with very few exceptions)
and not postpone doing homework or studying for tests. When I attended college for
those two semesters as a young adult, I was overcome with anxiety and
depression. However, some of that could have been avoided by steadier attendance
and less procrastination. Because I allowed myself to take classes at my own speed,
I enjoyed the process of learning overall, and ended up earning an associate degree
with high honors – which means I earned all As (with one A- in Statistics,
which was a true miracle!). I will share a few specific experiences in the
paragraphs that follow.
During my first semester in Fall 2015, I took Marriage
and Relationship Skills and General Psychology on campus. In addition, I chose
to take Foundations of Human Nutrition online (because I was terrified of
taking college Biology and this class was a prerequisite to Nutrition 2020,
which would mercifully fulfill my biology requirement). It’s not a coincidence
that I took Marriage and Relationship Skills my first semester at UVU. The
teacher was an adjunct professor and also an academic advisor in the Behavioral
Science department. She had been through a divorce and was currently in her
second marriage with several significant challenges. I was surprised at how
open she was about sharing her experiences, but it created an atmosphere that
felt safe for sharing our own challenging experiences. Since I was one of the
only married people in that class, I ended up commenting a lot. I was open
about the struggles I had over our differences in religious beliefs and used my
situation as the subject of several of my papers. One of the books we studied
was the Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by John M. Gottman. An
important lesson I learned from that book was to focus on solving the “solvable
problems” (chapter 9) and “overcoming gridlock” with “perpetual problems” (chapter
11). Our differences in belief is considered a “perpetual problem.” One way to “overcome
gridlock” is to “create shared meaning” (chapter 12). I realized I could do
that by understanding the “shared goals” within my dream. My dream was to eventually
have my family in the temple with me, but a strong component of that dream is
the desire to have a happy, healthy family. So that became the important shared
goal I could focus on, rather than constantly seeing the differences.
As the semester progressed, I continued to feel strongly
that I needed to connect with the teacher outside of class. There is a built-in
familiarity barrier in the student/teacher relationship, but I really wanted to
move past that. It helped that we were closer in age and we had several
conversations after class that gradually overcame that barrier. We discovered
we had some things in common and she convinced me to switch the emphasis of my Behavioral
Science major from psychology to family studies. That way, she became my
academic advisor for future semesters and we gradually became friends. I occasionally
stopped by her office during each semester after that to discuss some of the struggles
we had in common. I will always be grateful that I met her when I did because
it was a key to my overall success in college.
During this time, I also kept in touch occasionally by
email with my teacher from Turning Point. I continued to ask if I could visit
her one time as part of my ongoing journey. She finally agreed and met me at
Kneaders one day in mid-November. She asked more about my faith journey at the
beginning of our lunch and then I realized she had her own agenda for our
visit. She had recently written a long paper with her husband about some controversy
in the early days of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She wasn’t
trying to argue with doctrine, she just felt that there was more spirituality
to be found than the church was currently providing. She determined that I was
inspired to ask for a visit with her so she could share that paper with me. I took
it home and began to read it. Unfortunately, the combination of John’s unbelief
and the different ideas I read in that paper caused me to have my own faith crisis.
I talked over my concerns with two of my close friends several times and finally
worked through them with their help. My Marriage and Relationship Skills
teacher was a strong, supportive influence as well, although I didn’t share the
details with her. My previous teacher continued to keep in touch with me by
email and regretted giving the paper to me when she saw how it affected me. She
asked me not to pass it along to anyone else, so I ripped it up and tried to
move on. We have continued to be friends through email as well and I believe
there was purpose in that struggle. I came out on the other end much stronger
and more grounded in what I actually believe. That has served me well ever
since.
I became eligible for a scholarship from the Women’s
Success Center at UVU because I took the class from Turning Point during the summer.
I made the leap of faith, spent some time working on the essay, and applied for
the scholarship. I later met with several people one day in an interview. They
asked why I felt I deserved the scholarship, so I share my story of overcoming
depression and anxiety through my visiting journey. They were visibly impressed
and I earned a scholarship for the Spring 2016 semester. I still had some accommodations
because of MS and my diagnosis of Bipolar II Disorder, although both were currently
controlled well with medicine. My previous teacher/current academic advisor
helped me apply for an exception, so that I didn’t have to take the required 12
credit hours for the scholarship. The appeal was accepted and I was awarded the
adjusted amount of $1,000 just after the semester began. I was grateful for
that assistance, especially since John needed to pay tuition for both me and
our daughter.
During the Spring 2016 semester I took Introduction to Sociology and Introduction to Western Religions. I continued my pattern of talking with both teachers after class and learned a lot from them – both in and out of class. Two papers were required for my Western Religions class, but I asked the teacher if I could combine them into one large paper. He agreed and I wrote the paper on C.S. Lewis and The Chronicles of Narnia. I focused on the religious aspects of the author and the books in the series. I was fascinated with what I learned from my research and, although writing a research paper was an extremely stressful experience for me, I was proud of the final result. The teacher was so impressed that he gave a copy to his dad to read and I earned 100% on it. That made all the stress and effort feel worth it. In addition, the one class I wasn’t able to transfer from BYU was humanities. Therefore, I still needed to fulfill my humanities requirement, which is one of the only reasons I took this class. Plus, the poor grade I received the first time around didn’t transfer to pull down my cumulative GPA. (So, literally nothing was wasted from my previous college experiences.)
My Sociology teacher was an adjunct professor who attended the Lutheran church and she had been married for about 40 years to a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. So we spent a lot of time discussing religion and also life, in general. I walked her out to her car after class on most days, since she didn’t teach another class after ours and we continued our conversation while she smoked a couple of cigarettes before heading home. Among other things, talking with her helped me solidify my understanding of grace and I focused more on Christ’s grace in my life after that. One of the assignments for Sociology class was to attend another church and write a short paper about it. I chose to attend a Lutheran church close to our home on Palm Sunday and John came with me. It was a good experience and fit well with my Western Religions class also. I will always be grateful for the way both of those classes influenced my life for good.
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