School

I promised to share to everyday moments, even the mundane. Spoiler alert, I guess. 🤷‍♀️ School started up for me again this week, and instead of 2 classes in 8 weeks, this time I have to take 3 classes to make up a class I failed during the summer. Guys, it is hard. Harder than I thought it would be, and I thought it would be hard!

Why I’m sharing:
School was always easy for me. I never had to try, I aced tests without studying. I decided on a Wednesday that I would take the SAT’s that Saturday and scored a 1210 (back when it was out of 1600). 1200 was high enough to get me into almost any college I might have wanted to attend. I never even wanted to go to college. I was SURE at 17 that I wanted to join the Army, since I was also SURE that I couldn’t hack it in the Marines to follow in my dad’s footsteps! The week I was supposed to sign my papers, though, I left town. I was second guessing my choice.
Since my only other choices were working full-time with no real skills, or going to college, I made the only rational choice. I went to college, LOL! Other than dropping out of Trig and Physics halfway through my second semester when I was taking 7 classes and had a new boyfriend, college was easy. I graduated from community college with 2 Associate degrees when I was 19 before transferring to Chico State. And again, Chico State was easy until my third of 4 semesters. I failed a science class of all things (I’m great at science) because, you guessed it, I had a new boyfriend that I married in secret that same semester. He was a Marine. He’s still my husband now after more than 13 years. I dropped out after that semester because I finally discovered what I wanted to be when I grew up. Really I had always known. I wanted to be a wife and mother.

Long story short (I’ll save it for another day), the mother part hasn’t worked out, but I’ve been the best wife I could be. Even when I’ve failed being the best wife, I’ve always tried to be the best wife I am capable of being and that has looked different at different points in my life and in our marriage. Now, part of being the best wife, and person, I can be is going back to school to get my bachelor’s degree. What I’ve discovered about myself is that I think I’ve failed to keep learning. I mean, yeah, I know more things now than when I was 21, but I feel like I forgot how to learn. Because going back to school is hard. Sometimes I feel like no matter what I do, 3+3=7 and I can’t make it equal 6 to save my life. It’s been rough. I’ve had more panic attacks in the last year than I had in the 3 years before that combined.

But, I’m persevering. Because anything worth doing is worth doing right – and sometimes doing what’s right is hard. Thanks to the love and encouragement from my mom, and watching the struggles of my dad, I’ve learned perseverance from the time I was a child. It’s why I’m still here, how I’ve managed to survive. So, I keep on keeping on. I will get through this. It might not look like I expected it to, but I will go on and I WILL finish my degree.

Much Love,
Teri

P.S. If you want to talk about facing challenges with perseverance, feel free to comment, or use the contact form to send me an email.