An Ordinary Mom's Musings

I never went to college after high school. There were a lot of factors that played into this decision. I wasn’t going to go to school until I knew what I wanted to go to school for. And I really didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do with the rest of my life at 18.

Life took me to Washington D.C. were I became a Nanny and eventually met and married my husband. He left to deploy to Iraq on our first wedding anniversary.

This left me working, newly married, alone, with a husband in a war zone, praying he would come home. I went through a lot those 16 months and learned a lot about myself.

Sitting in a class for women one day during this time, that our church had put together listening to a Marriage and Family Therapist speak. I don’t remember what he was talking about or said, but I do remember sitting there and out of the blue, it occurring to me that I wanted his job. I knew that I had finally found what I wanted to be when I grew up. A Therapist.

My husband was gone and I didn’t have anything else to do to keep me busy, so I worked two jobs and enrolled in college. When I started, I was warned that no one would listen to me until I was old and grey. But I was 26 and I had finally figured things out. I didn’t care.

I did well in school and loved every minute of it. I’ve always loved learning.

Eventually, my husband came home, children came, and it just wasn’t possible for me to continue on with my studies. But in the back of my mind the whole time while I was raising my tiny children, I knew I would go back and finish what I started.

About a year ago, my husband turned over his education benefits from the military to me. I re-enrolled in college and now 15 years after I started, I have an Associates Degree.

The last 6 months as this date approached, I have debated whether to even tell anyone. After all, it’s “just” an Associates Degree. It’s not like it’s a PhD. There’s not much you can do with an Associates degree. I think too, perhaps I was just a little bit ashamed that at 41 years old I was just now earning it.

But darn it. I worked hard for that degree. I patiently waited for the time to be right for me to go back and earn it. I achieved it the middle of, and despite job loss, a deployed husband, a husband returning, miscarriage, death of loved ones, moving across the country, dealing with the demands of a special needs child, being a mother, and I persisted in spite of all of it.

It took me 15 years.

I’ve found vindication in keeping alive that hope that I would return and finish all that time. Associates Degree: 15 Years In the Making Click To Tweet

I’ll be taking a semester (maybe two) off to settle my family in to our new home in Mississippi and take a deep breath. But then I plan to be back at it and get my Bachelors degree in less than 15 years. And that grey hair, I was told I had to have? I accomplished that too!