Please welcome today’s guest writer, Santia Casagrand. Santia graduated in 2019 with Bachelor’s degree in social work. She is living in northern Japan and is serving in the Air Force as a Mental Health Technician. She will graduate in the Spring of 2022 with her master’s degree in social work. She remains unsure of what she will do with her life.
They told me I would “do great things.”
So when I look around me, I have no doubts that it has all been lies.
I’ve been searching under rocks, underwater, and in the sky.
Where oh where Lord, are these great things?
I graduated from high school six months early, top of my class actually.
Then I went straight to college, head held high and full of purpose.
Because great things were mine to accomplish.
What better way to do so than to be a doctor? Perhaps a surgeon.
For sure there are all the great things, all mine to do.
The prof walked in, full of expertise, having already accomplished his great things.
Without missing a beat, he told us a fact—most of us would get a C in the class.
Just like that, he sealed my fate. He turned around and began writing equations
and I was left way back on the horizon.
I went to chapel with my lowest grade as proof.
Great things, for sure, were not for me.
God, how did you bring me here to fail?
My GPA, my shame, my frustration.
To top it all off, my own family member voiced his lack of surprise.
They never tell you that the so-called great things weren’t so great at all.
Day by day, it’s a grieving process.
Trying to live up to their expectations because I must not disappoint.
I cannot rest, cannot waste a day, because others have less than me.
I must accomplish these great things. If not for me, at least for them.
I joined the Air Force, maybe I just needed to Aim High.
Turns out Basic Training was hell’s cousin.
I was labeled a disappointment simply because I forgot to wear my cap.
They broke us down, and we were told it was to build us up.
We would learn to follow orders, we would learn to not ask questions.
No one told me I would find great things here.
I am me no matter where I go.
Feeling empty, not enough, and simply like I am losing.
Losing my hope and dreams, but not wanting to settle.
How is it that others can see greatness for me, but I cannot?
Feeling like I’m wasting my talents, losing my strength.
The sad thing is, I was told that would happen
I heard “Oh just wait and see, life is not all that it is cracked up to be.”
I wish people would just tell me where the so-called “greatness” awaits me.
So I decided to go back to school, thinking “I shall earn my master’s degree in a year!”
Because great are the things that await me.
The closer I get to graduation, the more confused I feel:
Is it enough? Is it worthwhile? Will it impact the most people?
The goal was to change the world, but for now I’ll settle with changing myself.
So if you feel uncertain and wrestling with questions
If you are grieving the dreams hoped for and the desires not yet accomplished,
If you feel left behind, slow, and that you are just not quite there yet
Then let me congratulate you,
For you have accomplished Great Things.
