Chris is Processing, Vol. 1 — April 8, 2026

A few weeks ago, I decided to quit. Sounds abrupt, right? Maybe it even looks it. But I'd been thinking about leaving BHCC since the end of Fall 2025. When I enrolled in Spring 2026 I told myself, you can do this. Four weeks in, I couldn't log a full work day, I wasn't sleeping, and I knew what the problem was. Too many content shifts throughout the week. I looked busy but I was getting nothing done. So I quit. Not without running through every scenario first. I've had the same option since Fall, return to SNHU, pay nothing, work on my own time, and actually have the freedom to get things done without dreading how I'd fit in a month end close. Seems easy. So I let go. What I let go of was the dream BHCC held. Me walking across that stage with my associate's degree for the first time. And letting that go, that hurt. Big time. Therapy is teaching me that some dreams we once had no longer align with who we're meant to be. Understanding that, sitting with that, it's hard for me. Because when I'm in the middle of change, I have self doubt. I crumble.

After dropping my classes, I was filled with self doubt. What am I doing? How am I going to survive this? How am I going to tell everyone who has been cheering me on? But my mission hasn't changed. I will have my bachelor's degree by the time I turn 40. That is no lie, no joke even, that is exactly what I intend to do. So it became, okay, how do I make this time between now and the first week of May meaningful? How do I not step back into overwhelm when school gets here? How do I plan an eight hour day with intention, make time for the gym, and set goals I can actually see, feel, touch even? I looked around and saw my messy room. I wanted order, so I gave everything a place. It's still messy, ha, but everything has a place. I dedicated myself to working full eight hour days. I set a gym schedule, a workout plan, and now I'm running three miles without stopping. Unheard of before. The scale is dropping, because I'm working with my nutritionist to understand food, understand my obsession with cookies, and yeah, the food is making more sense too. These are all things that were happening while I was at BHCC, and they were working, until the mid-day classes took so much out of me I couldn't find my focus. Now on the treadmill, rethinking my week, I want to be ready when May comes. Ready to lock in. Maybe I'm rambling in circles. My hands are starting to hurt from writing.

All in all, the world is a mess. The news says we are at war, and all I see is sales on Uber Eats and DoorDash orders at Chipotle. Gas is high. Groceries and the things that make me pretty, high too. Deep sigh. I don't want to go back to the old days. I was on YouTube recently watching Oprah host a conversation about the state of AI, where it's going, what we should do about it. One guy said he's excited about all the good it will do. The media is mediaing, and I don't even know if that's a word, but it is. There are so many stories out there for people to hear, absorb, and call their own words. Let your goals guide you forward. Hard decisions will come, make them, but think first about how they impact who you intend to become. And if you've already become, think about how they impact who you are, your perception, not for the ones who perceive you. It's hard out here for a pimp, when he tryna get his money for the rent.

This month's question:

When you stepped back and looked at your life from a distance, what did you see that you couldn't see up close?