Gasping at lost time

Posted by Ms. Babble

January 24, 2007

Today I had to fill out a form explaining why I didn’t retake a class within 13 months of failing it.Â Yep, the cat’s out of the bag.Â In the past I did fail a course.Â And it wasn’t for lack of trying.Â I just never showed up.Â Well, I think I showed up four or five times.Â But I was one of those ignorant students who thought I could somehow manage a course via psychic abilities or something.Â Either way, I was stupid and didn’t bother just dropping the course for an incomplete.Â

So I had to explain in detail why I didn’t retake it until now and requesting that they wipe out the ‘F’ and replace it with whatever gradeÂ I get this semester.Â Again I had to explain that I wasÂ out of the country…Â deployed toÂ Iraq…Â blah blah blah.

As I was re-reading the little pleading paragraph I wrote to my Dean, I was suprisingly astonished at the chronology I had to lay out for them.Â

Took the class in Fall 2004.
Deployed for the Fall 2005 courses.
Returned to school after deployment Spring 2007.

I kept thinking that I wasn’t writing the dates correctly.Â I kept reading it over and over again counting the semesters and years.Â Â And then I realized that it was totally correct and that I had really lost all that time.Â I sat there for god knows how long with the form in front of me and pen still poised to continue writing but was in a complete daze.Â I didn’t realize this, of course, until the secretary asked me if I needed any help with the form.Â She had broken the spell I found myself in.

I’ve tried very hard to be ignorant of that time gap.Â But to see it written out in my own hand sitting in front of me somehow gave me a massive bought of anxiety.Â My reaction to the realization was to get lost in the memories of that time and also to think of what I would be if I wasn’t writing out this form today.

***addition***

After reading what I wrote here, I realized that I ended it quite abruptly.Â It was a perfect opportunity to explore why I have these moments of absolute panic.Â But I didn’t.Â It’s a perfect example of how I drudge up these emotions and then immediately bury them.Â And the funny thing is that even though I’m noticing it now, I’m still not going to divulge.

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