Well, here it is...

I've been thinking a lot about what to do with my life lately and I decided it was time to make a serious decision about school and life in general.
This semester was the worst semester I've ever had in college. And honestly, the last year of college has been the worst ever. I've been drained emotionally, physically, and spiritually. I've cried more in the last 6 months than I've cried my whole life put together. I felt like a lousy mom, a lousy wife, and a lousy student. I pretty much lost contact with the world and my friends. I stopped hanging out with my husband just so I could study, and yet, my grades still looked horrible.
Many times I forgot to pray, or read my scriptures (I'm LDS for those who don't know). I can't even say how long it's been since I cracked my scriptures open. I haven't been to church in over a year, first by choice (long story) then when I did want to go, I couldn't, because I started working every weekend. I'm ashamed I've gone this far out without realizing it. It takes one slip for things to go downhill FAST.
So now I find myself in a situation I never dreamed of being. I'm "inactive", if you want to call it that, when I really don't want to be, I'm short-tempered and anything that goes wrong sets me off, and overall I'm burnt out. I always heard the term being "burnt out", but didn't actually experience it until now. We're short selling my house because I had to go down to part-time and financially we can't afford it anymore. Things have pretty much fallen to pieces and I've been trying to glue them back together with water acting as the glue... it's not working so well.
Then there's this whole deal about having another baby.... *sigh*. If I slow down, would I want to have another one? Would I be able to deal with a second one? In the back of my mind I keep hearing, "You should have another one, for the sake of your child", but yet, I think about the first few months of having a new baby and how my life had been turned upside down and how miserable it was. And still is. Motherhood does not come easily to me, and it's hard work! But I wonder if it would've been any easier if I hadn't been school? I'm sure, but how much easier?! I see pregnant women and somehow envy them... then immediately I think, "Fun now, wait until delivery. You'll be a zombie". That's crazy! I can't figure out what I want! But I know why: it's because I have no guidance from the Heavens. I've forgotten to pray for help. I've gotten so used to just doing everything on my own that I stopped asking. I didn't want to bother God with menial requests such as "Please, Heavenly Father, give me the strength to survive from 6am until 11pm or later tonight, just so I can do it again and again this week..." or "Dear Heavenly Father, please help Jacen stop throwing food on the floor, I don't have the patience or the strength to deal with that right now". So isn't this what prayers are for? God is there to help me with the tedious requests, but somehow, I didn't think it was important enough. The only times I prayed were to bless the food when we ate meals, before bed, and while sitting in school just about to take a test. That's it. How pathetic.
So I had to come with a way to prioritize the important things in my life. What are obviously the vital things in my life that I'm missing? First of all, the consistency of the Gospel in my life. That has been by far the worst for me; not to be able to go to church or take my family to church. Spiritually I'm starved, and it's showing all over the map. And secondly, my family. I would go two weeks or more not putting my son to bed every night because I would study or have class, or both. I miss my husband. He's has been such a great support to me, and yet, I can't even spend time with him to thank him for everything he has been doing for me and for our family. School comes in third (believe it or not!), and I've been doing horrible in that department as well. Screwing up with the first two priorities made me unhappy enough to not be successful with my third priority because I had made school top priority, and it shouldn't have been that way.
I thought a lot about my choices of what to do with school and after writing down all the pros and cons of graduating on time or later, I found that the pros of delaying graduation had a much longer list than the cons. Staying on track had more pros than cons as well, but the cons were more important to me. I HATE the thought of delaying graduation, but I don't want my life to be this way anymore. I want to be happy. I feel like I fell into this empty, dark and musky well and didn't ask to be rescued. But now I do, and the only way out of it is by climbing all the way up by myself. No one can do it for me. I have to. And if takes relying on the Lord for help, so be it. I must learn to not be so stubborn and ask for help. Therefore, I decided to delay graduation by a year. It hurts to make this decision but it's for the best. I won't have to be taking a ton of hard classes at the same time and I can devote time to going to church and taking care of my family like I should, and still have time to work on my education and all the extracurricular stuff that I still need to get done. Plus I'll have an extra year to study for the MCAT, which is always nice.
There. The decision has been made and I'm sticking to it. Helps to have it written down so I don't change my mind, it's like if I were to write it in stone :P