It’s been a bad night.  A bad night on many incomprehensible levels.  At least I didn’t send my kid back to Russia bad night.  We must be grateful for small miracles.

It was one of those epitome of days when you wonder why you work so hard.  It’s all for what?  To feel like you’ve failed?  Granted, I am probably a lot harder on myself than I should be.  I push myself to the point of exhaustion.  To the point of feeling is hard. And I’m only taking three classes right now.  Do you all remember me when I was taking 5 at a time?  I was non-human.

Today during my afternoon class I received my midterm paper back.  I got a C.  Patti does not get C’s.  Ever.  With the one exception of one professor.  My new found self proclaimed favorite professor has now given me 2 C’s.  He has given me more C’s than I have ever had in the culmination of my entire school career.  Why must we ask?  Apparently it’s because I’m not up to par.  I worked my ass off.  Was done way ahead of everyone else.  And yet, I got a C.  Why did I get a C – why? Beating myself up has become my new favorite hobby.

But, there is, hope.  Hope is what life depends on.  Hope that there is happiness.  I had a few tears after my C, or many tears if we want to be honest, until I was angry at myself for crying over a C.  Which made me feel like a failure even more for not being able to fail at anything, and of course I cried even more.  I sucked up all my courage and patted my face dry, tried to pretend I didn’t cry, and packed myself up and went on to my Stats course.

I had a flurry of emotions running through me as I walked down the three flights of stairs in the math building.  Angry, scared, ashamed.  On top of it all extreme panic was setting in, as I was hoping to get a letter of recommendation from the amazing professor, and with all of these C’s, one can’t imagine any kind of recommendation letter to be raving on my ability to perform in an educational setting.  When it was time for my Stats class to start I reluctantly went in, remembering then that we were to be receiving our tests back.  So I was waiting for yet another big grade to come back at me.  I secretly told myself that if it was more bad news, if I had received another C, or worse, I would get up and walk out.

There is absolutely nothing worse than crying in front of everyone over something you think is entirely pathetic yourself.

I sat down, and held my breath.  I texted Brandon and Nick to try and talk my way through not being angry at my professor for my grade on my paper.  My very supportive best Nick told me to punch him “in the dick.”  I’m grateful for him for the small smiles he can bring me. I waited with my hands clasped together, staring into space, and hoping for a least a little glimmer of hope that I wasn’t a complete failure at life.

I now know, looking back, even though I still feel horrible, that I put too much emphasis on specific grades.  School is my life though.  I live for it.  I want it.  I want to be good.  I want to be good at something.  And nothing has come easier to me than being a good student.  I loved gifted when I was younger because it was fun, and easy, and I got to be with people who understood the desire to be good at something, anything.  To feel the light shining on our immature little souls who didn’t know what life was really about.

During this time Brandon had sent me a text.  It was him expressing his frustration over my grade.  He had a hard time grasping his mind around how I got a C after hours of dedicated work, and my reaching out to my professor for help (which he neglected to give me because he got sick and then felt I didn’t need my paper gone over before handing it in).  He was angry, frustrated, and most of all, feeling protective over his wife and the extreme agony I was going through.  To be cared for.  It keeps me afloat, and I love him for it with every inch of my being.

With that little sigh of relief from my husband caring about me, my professor approached me.  I hadn’t realized he started to hand back the tests because I was in my own little world of trying to imagine that things were OK.  That my husband loved me and wanted to protect me.  That I had a beautiful 3 year old waiting at home wanting to make snakes out of playdoh.  Apparently I was also was on the top of the stack of tests to hand back, so I looked up, slightly shocked to see him there, and he smiled at me.

Smiled?  Really? Yes, smiled.  He said “Hey, good job.”  My mind went blank.  Wait, what?  Did he say good job, because I’m pretty sure I’m a dismal failure at this point.  I slowly grab my paper, inching my eyes up the page desperately hoping that the need to get up and leave would fail to come.

And, I got a 100.  Yes, a 100.  Not a single thing done wrong.  My test could have been used as the answer key.  No one even touched my grade.  The next closest was in the low 80s, then mostly in the seventies (and lower, some way lower, I feel bad).

I took a picture to relish in my new found release.  I stopped crying.  I started to feel, human again.  Even though the feelings of failure still sat in the pit of my stomach.

The !!! points that my professor put on the end made my day in the slightest of ways.  After the shock of the perfect score, I then began to wonder why I couldn’t pull off anything higher than a C in the class that is my major.  When I can take a test blind for a course that has nothing to do with what I want to do with my life.  I then couldn’t help wondering if maybe God was trying to tell me something.  Or fate had taken over.

I sat for the rest of the class in a half daze.  My brain was still hurting from the extreme flood of emotion after receiving my paper back and rushing to the bathroom to hinder the looks I would receive from sobbing in the halls.  Then it reminded me how during the test, it only took me twenty minutes.  I went up to hand in my test to the professor, and feeling slightly strange since I could tell everyone else was still very early into the test, I whispered to him very lightly that I was done.  I somehow felt I must have done something wrong, must be missing something major, and he told me to sit back down and stew on it.  So, I did.  I stewed on it for about another 15 minutes.  I also did some people watching, trying to distinguish if anyone was in agony and if anyone was close to done.  To my dismal surprise, everyone was in agony, and no one was close to done.  I gave up though, threw my hands up in the air, and decided that if there was something I was missing, I had no idea what it was.  So I handed in my test with an audible “I give up,” and left the class to wander off into my life and forced the test out of my mind.

So I want to thank my brain for being some kind of strange math whiz, which I never quite understood.  Who thanks their brains?  The people who have a hard time with failing.  The people who find release in the smallest accomplishments.  And I am  definitely one of those people.

My eyes still hurt from crying.