reality....

I feel like talking and I do not want to express my thoughts to my family since I would probably bore them to near death, so here I am.

As I have stated previously, this is my fourth semester in college. Each day that I attend class I am full-filling a dream I had for many years to further my education. Here's just a bit of history on how I came to be in college in the first place. Years ago in my senior year of high school there were some very personal issues going on in my life that no 17 year old should have to deal with. Between being a mom to my 6 month old baby girl, trying to finish high school, and working full-time I had no spare time to begin with. On top of that I was being prepped to testify in court against not just two, but three people that I had witnessed commit two different crimes. During this time I decided that something had to give and I decided it was going to be school. My parents were not happy but they couldn't stop me because at that time you could quit school at 17. The day I quit school I was 6 weeks into my senior year and even though I was making a stupid decision, I also made a smart one. Before I left school that day I signed up to start classes a week later to earn my GED. I have regretted quitting school many times, but I do not regret earning my GED because I learned more in those few months of class than I had ever learned in my regular schooling. I graduated with honors and brought home many awards for my accomplishments. I earned my GED before my senior class graduated. I did not know at the time, but I could have walked across the stage and graduated with my senior class due to my high GED score.

That is where it all started, my dream of going to college. I am not sure if it was being a mother to my then fourteen month old daughter, Chesney, and/or the fact that Shawn and I had just got married. Either way I was looking the world, my responsibility, in the face the night I walked across the stage and received my diploma and awards. I had never in my life thought of anything other than being a wife and a mother some day, even before I was a wife and mother. Throughout the years, I kept telling myself that college just wasn't in the cards for me because I was doing what I had always wanted to do, caring for my own family. Besides I wasn't smart enough for college. I was working full-time, caring for my three small children, supporting and helping my husband build a hardwood flooring business that would become very successful, and doing everything else mothers do. As the years kept rolling by my desire to go back to school grew and I would talk to Shawn about it when we were alone. He would encourage me to go for it, but I continued to think that I was not smart enough. In the late 1990's, the internet started becoming more popular and I started connecting with new people through chat rooms then blogging and I was addicted to their intelligence.

Then in June of 2010 our world stopped when Shawn's mother told us she had lung cancer. Two weeks later as we were preparing to leave for our summer vacation, she informed us the cancer was not just in her lungs but it was everywhere, especially her brain. Even though we were devastated, she would not allow us to cancel vacation so the next morning we reluctantly left for the beach. We spent one miserable, worrisome week being away from her. Within weeks she began her radiation treatments and it didn't take too long to realize that the radiation was making her worse. She kept telling us what she was going through was normal, but we had our doubts. She wouldn't allow us to talk with her doctor or take her to appointments, only her sister was allowed that chore. Finally the radiation treatments were finished, but she continued to be very sick. So much so that the doctors had to get her better to start chemotherapy treatments. Her doctor was a wonderful man who does not hand out time limits and continues to do what he can throughout the process of cancer no matter what stage it is in when they discover it. In November we found out that she had known from the beginning that her cancer was stage 4. We didn't give up hope nor did we kid ourselves about facing reality. In November I quit my job and we moved her in with us so that I could care for her when Hospice wasn't here. In early January during a small snow and ice storm she passed away. For months after she passed away we were all depressed and in shock. I finally went back to work and we tried to get back into a normal routine of life, but we all came home each day and cried and held each other. For the first time in my life, I could not understand what the point of life was. At that time, to me, the definition of life was a long drawn out miserable time of pain and loss and I was over it. I do not mean that I was suicidal, not at all, but I wanted answers. Then one morning in early December of 2011, I woke up and the only thought that kept running through my head that day was that I did not want to arrive at my death bed and have to look back at my life and wonder why I wasted the time I had been blessed with because of fear. The next day I called my sister to talk to her and I told her that I wanted to go to college for medical administration and unbelievably she told me that she had registered at our local community college and she would be starting in January for the same path I wanted to go. That day I contacted the college and within two days I was registered. I started college on January 12, 2012 and I haven't looked back since. I have loved every minute of the experience, though hard it has been. I have kept really great grades and remain in the top three of most of my classes. The greatest thing, my sister has been right there beside me the entire time. We create our schedules together to have the same classes and that has been awesome because not only are we bettering our futures together, but we are creating a closer relationship between us and that is what matters most.

Today I registered for classes for next semester and it hit me that I am almost finished with college. To be exact, I will graduate in December of 2014. I almost cried when I had it all lying before me in paper because it made that graduation date real. This semester has been very hard and I have worked my booty off to make the high grades. Now that I am closer to full-filling my dream of having a college degree, I am so glad that I woke up that morning almost two years ago in December and realized that I wanted to step out of depression and do something with my life. Without going through the experience of cancer and loosing a loved one, I don't think I would be where I am today. Every day we miss my mother-in-law but we know that she would not want us to mope around, she would want us to get out and get on with life.