The Column Continues...

Since http://www.belchertown-news.com/ is on a permanent break, I've been thinking about how much I miss writing. I also tend to proof and edit things randomly and I'm sure that my friends and family are tired of me finding typos in the most basic things. I'm perfectly capable of creating my own typos and overlooking them too, since we all seem to miss our own mistakes.

It seems like just yesterday that I headed back to college for my BA degree. In September of 2008, I began the Saturday Program at Bay Path College in Longmeadow; and while I was excited about the opportunity, I was a little nervous that my thirty-something year-old brain wouldn't work the same as it did the last time was I was in school. To my pleasant surprise, not only could I handle the workload, but I actually excelled in the program. What a coincidence it was that I had originally intended to go to Bay Path right after high school, when it was only a two-year school. Somehow I ended up at Holyoke Community College with a lot of my friends and earning both a certificate and an Associates Degree in my two years there.

In the seventeen years that followed, I was employed by educational institutions--supporting others in their quest for a college degree. I felt like I had squeezed as much life as possible out of my associates degree, and I realized that there is an invisible door in the employment world which can only be opened up with a four-year degree. All the experience in the world isn't going to matter to an employer who is concerned about that piece of paper. That fact really hit me after I left my last job in 2007 and learned later that a younger degree holder in the office had not only taken over my position, but did so with an advanced title. While I was happy that she had been given the opportunity, it further strengthened my desire to earn my degree.

I have no regrets. I know that the sequence of events in my life happened for a reason--perhaps for no other reason than to say that I now am the mother of a daughter in college, and I appreciate my having graduated now far more than I would have appreciated it back then. I have no immediate plans for a job change either, I'm just going to enjoy this for a while. Some have asked me if I plan to continue to get my Masters. I'm not sure just yet--but I did bring home the application.

I am grateful to all those who have encouraged and supported me with words and with patience. Thank you! I am also grateful for the many new Bay Path friends I have gained along the way.

To reflect on the haiku which I wrote for my World Literature class:

After eighteen years
it is her time which has come,
mine begins again.

One more thing... YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!