I remember exactly where I was when I got the news. It was a Monday afternoon, January 13th. I was at work just chipping away at the day when the email came, my college program was closing. I wasn’t going to graduate in time, I was going to have to make new plans yet again.
What does one even do when your college closes? Well, this isn’t the first time it happened to me so I should know right? Somehow though, I have less of a plan than I did the first time, I felt even more lost when getting the news. Shouldn’t it be the other way around?
It’s been a few weeks since I got this news, and it still rings true that this second time is harder for me to cope with, and I think I know why. To understand I think we need to back up and look at my college experience from the start.
I was getting close to graduating college, and I had finally figured out what I wanted to do afterwards. I made plans to move to Texas with a family I had been nannying for, I would follow the mom and kids there and continue working for them while attending a local college there. I was finally excited for graduation and everything that was coming next, I was looking forward to life for the first time in a long time. Then I got the call. My plans were ruined. The mom of the family I was going to live with changed her mind, I would no longer have a job there. I no longer knew what I was doing and graduation just kept inching closer.
I had to pivot and make new plans quick, I was running out of time. So, I applied to Portland Community College. It was better than nothing and I had no other real goals to lead me at the time. So that’s what I did. At first I was just going to go and get my associates degree, but then I learned that PCC had a women’s soccer team, and being an athlete I decided to do what I could to get a spot on the team, and it worked! I felt good about my situation again, I would get to continue playing soccer and it wouldn’t be a terribly hard transition.
My first year at PCC went well enough, nothing too notable. My second year there is the one I really remember though. When I look back at my life, that’s the year that I most often want to re-live. In simplest words, I was the main character that year and I loved it. The soccer team had a new coach that I liked better than the last, I loved the classes I was taking, and it was that year that I met the professor that has claimed the title of my absolute favorite teacher ever (I still go visit him sometimes, I am so grateful for him and his classes.)
Once again it was getting close to time to take the next step, and I felt lost. I knew what I wanted to major in, and this time I at least had soccer to help guide me too, but it was still a hard decision to have to face. After considering a few different schools, I ended up deciding to move to the Boston area and attend a school out there. I would be able to play soccer, they had my major, and I liked the idea of going somewhere new.
So many people told me how crazy I was for moving across the country by myself when I had never even visited the school, but my mind was made. I was making this happen. So I did, and I absolutely loved the experience. I felt like I had finally found my own place, with my own group of people and everything. This is something that was always hard growing up in such a big family, so I loved the freedom and the ability to really be me instead of just another Hoffman. But as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end.
I came home for the summer, ready to see my family and enjoy the west coast again before going back and starting my senior year. A senior year that I was finally excited for. I was never great in school growing up, so being excited for senior year felt like kind of a big thing for me.
About halfway through the summer my family was all together on vacation, we were staying in a beach house for a week. It was supposed to be a good week for me, but the world had other plans. I was texting with one of my friends back east when I first heard the news. She knew someone on the board at the school, and there had been a vote. Our school was closing. I didn’t really believe it at first, I really didn’t want to.
It wasn’t until about a week later that we all got the official email. I couldn’t avoid it anymore, it was real. My plans were gone, I didn’t get to go back my school. That was the end of that. I would love to say that I coped well with it, but the truth is I didn’t really cope at all.
Instead of ever being upset about the fact that all my plans were ruined, I just threw myself into making new plans. I never took the time to feel all the emotions that would come with this change, I just ignored them cause I simply didn’t have time. I just needed to move forward cause that was the only option, so I planned.
It didn’t take me long to set up new plans, I still knew one of the coaches from one of the other schools I had considered, so I reached out to him and decided to go there. It was a local school so it would be easy to just stay home and finish up my last year there. That was the plan. Everything was working out just fine, I had avoided the crisis. It was okay that I never took the time to be upset, because now I had this new thing to look forward to instead.
Turns out, I should’ve done more research. This new experience I told myself to be excited for was not at all what I had been hoping for. My classes were all online, I ended up hating the head coach of my soccer team to the extent that I was just counting down the days until my senior season was over, and on top of that they wouldn’t accept all of my credits so I wasn’t going to be able to graduate on time anymore. I was not happy.
This brings us pretty much to now. I finished up my semester online and the soccer season ended. I came to peace with the fact that I would be graduating this fall instead of this spring. I got a new job that I love, I felt like things were going to turn out okay. It finally felt like I was getting my footing again. Of course that’s when the news came. This school was closing too.
This one hit a lot harder. I never fully processed the first school closure so how was I supposed to take another one? Once again my plans were thrown away without me having any say in it. I definitely think that I would have been more capable of dealing with this news had I let myself process things the first time around. But of course I hadn’t, so now I was dealing with what felt like double the emotions.
Of course since I was at work when I got the news, I started to feel all the emotions right then and there, but couldn’t. I once again found myself in a spot where I simply didn’t have the time to be upset about it, I just ignored the feelings. Once I pushed them down to make it through work, I realized I didn’t want to bring them back. I was simply going to avoid them again, it would be easier that way.
That only worked for a few days though. I ended up talking to one of my friends about the situation, and they happened to say something that dug up all of those locked up emotions. “You’ve got resilience.” Apparently that was all it took to open up the waterworks. This friend didn’t know that they opened up the scab that came from two schools closing, but I will be forever grateful that they did. This started the process of me finally being able to move forward again, it was just what I needed.
This time is different than the first in a few ways, first off I don’t have any other schools to fall back on. I also don’t have soccer to take me somewhere new. I have to try to find a school to take me for one semester. I stand firm that I don’t want to push back my graduation date, but who knows how realistic that is or not. I guess I’ll get to find out.
I got the news two weeks ago now, and I’m still trying to figure out my next step. Everyone has their own opinions on how I should go forward. Part of me wants to just let one of them choose for me. But alas I can’t do that. I need to make the move myself, no matter how much I don’t want to. There’s a lot of things I’m trying to consider as I make this decision, and even though I’ve done this before I still feel overwhelmed at the thought of figuring it all out for myself.
I still have a hard time believing this all really happened to me, what even are the odds? There have been plenty of moments where I couldn’t help but feel I should have done something different at some point, but it’s too late to worry about that now. I’ve decided that I can still be sad for what I’ve lost, and I don’t think that I’ll just recover from this in a week or two, but it’s time to move forward.
Now I get to play the game again, where do I want life to take me? At first this scared me, I didn’t want to make that call yet. But now I’m choosing to think of it as exciting. Not many people get to try something new for their last semester of college year. This is a very unique situation, and I’m going to make it an exciting one. I’m looking forward to the fact that I get to control where my future goes. It may not always feel like it but I am in control of my story and it looks like it’s time to start a new chapter, one that I can’t help but look forward to.