Hi, my name is Isobel Whitcomb, and I have officially endured The Worst Summer Ever. All hyperboles aside, from any person’s objective standpoint, my summer does look pretty bad.

All year, I had been looking forward to studying abroad in Bhutan with the School for Field Studies (SFS), taking classes and conducting an independent research project at the Ugyen Wangchuck Institute for Conservation and the Environment (UWICE). My time there was to be spent scaling the rough terrain of the Himalayas, collecting data in the field, and learning from both American and Bhutanese professors in ecology and forestry.

And then everything went awry.

UWICE, where I was meant to study this summer.

It all started during my first week at home. I should have been excited to be done with Junior year, for my 21st birthday, and most of all to take off for Bhutan. But I just couldn’t muster up the enthusiasm or energy. My mum kept saying “I didn’t look quite right,” (thanks, Mum), but I just chalked up the comments to her British bluntness. I felt tired and bedraggled. The simplest tasks zapped me of energy. I was sleeping all the time. But to be honest, who doesn’t feel a little wiped out after a long, hard semester and all the stress of finals week. It wasn’t until my face and neck erupted in huge, painful lumps and I got a high fever that I realized perhaps something was wrong.

Drawing a comparison between me and this chipmunk would be doing the chipmunk a disservice.

So I had mono. And strep throat. And a respiratory infection. I could probably soldier through that, right? Wrong, Isobel, very wrong. My doctor absolutely banned me from traveling, even though if her consent hadn’t been an issue I would have gone anyways.

I was forced abandon my entire plan for the summer. Not only was this incredibly disappointing for obvious reasons, but the decision came with a vast amount of guilt. Like all my fellow Scrippsies, I am a high achieving liberal arts student. Throughout my time in college, I’ve had it drilled into me that summers are a time of productivity meant for internships, research, or classes. Now, I was having the valuable summer before my senior year snatched from me.

Or so I thought. After three weeks of resting in bed, either sleeping, watching netflix, or trying to figure out how to get food and liquids into me without feeling even more sick, I began to feel slightly better. Now, “better” is entirely relative. By “better” I mean that I was able to sit out on my back porch and do a low key activity, like reading, writing, and painting. I was able to walk around the block once or twice. As it turned out, this time for self-reflection was exactly what I needed, not only physically, but mentally.

If I were to print a novelty calendar for my year, this would be the background for June.

College is stressful. Not only is it a time when success is defined by good grades and time spent doing research or running clubs, but it’s also a developmentally formative time when we’re trying to figure out once and for all who we are, who our people are, and what exactly we’re supposed to do with the rest of our lives.

Now, I don’t want to give the impression that I haven’t totally appreciated my three plus years at Scripps. I’ve made friends with some of the brightest, most genuine women I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet. I’ve taken life-changing courses. I’ve spent hours reading Foucault while lying in the sun on Jacqua quad. But I’ve also struggled to find my niche academically, to decide on the career to pursue, and of course I have struggled with comparing myself to the bright, accomplished young women I just mentioned.

I found that as I rested my body, I gained mental clarity. I began to tease out my priorities. No path immediately appeared through the murky mire of what I wanted to do in life, but my values did quickly reveal themselves. For instance, I realized that I wasn’t willing to give up writing, and that any career I pursued would need to allow for a touch of creativity. As the summer went on, I began venturing onto the internet to explore my options for jobs and for grad school. For years I’ve entertained the idea of going into Science writing without really understanding how I might get there. Over the summer, I finally had the time, and mental energy to seriously look into these options. I called alumni, emailed program directors.

For the first time, I began to feel excited for life after graduation. Even more than that, I absolutely couldn’t wait.

Coming back to school last week, I was asked countless times “How was your summer?” Some people hadn’t heard, or else had forgotten that I spend half the summer recovering from three illnesses. Nevertheless, whenever I’m met with this question, I smile and answer with ease “It was my best summer yet.” Because sometimes the events in life that we least expect are the most valuable, and formative of our lives.

Once I’m established as a science writer, I’ll have mono to thank.

Discussion: If you have stories of mishaps or unexpected events that ended up leading to significant change or decision in life, leave it in the comments! I’d love to hear them.