Back to School at 43

I have found that life can get away from you real quick. One day you're a 17 year old college student, and the next, you're a 43 year old wife, mother, career woman, and college dropout or better said, non-graduate.

That's my story...After I graduated with honors from high school, I went off to a 4-year university, ready to take the world by storm. After a whole lot of "reasons" (being diagnosed with a chronic illness/disease while away, meeting my now husband, and not loving where I was geographically) I moved back home and went to community college. While going to community college, I was hired at a great company with a "real" job making "real" money at 20! (I ended up working for that company for 22 years.) I continued to go to school while working full time. I even transferred into a 4-year college. I got married, and then we decided to grow our family, all while I worked full-time, moving up the corporate ladder, and going to school. With a lot of "morning" sickness (aka all day sickness), I decided to take a break from school. I was spreading myself too thin. I'd go back when the baby was a bit older. That's what I told myself; I really did believe it.  Cut to a few years later, we added to our family again, all the while I'd been moving up the corporate ladder. Here I was making the same money as and working with folks who had gone to a 4+ year college who were now stuck paying off student loans. I really didn't see the benefits of going back to school, so I didn't.

Then one day a few months ago, I was contemplating what was next in my life and realized if I ever wanted to make a real change in the direction of my career or even just as a back-up for when I'm older (because you never know what's going to happen), I realized I would need a college degree. I remembered how much I always enjoyed school, learning new things. Since I never graduated, I went over to the college I did not graduate from 17 years ago to figure out what it would take for me to get my degree. Imagine my surprise when I found out I only had 6 classes left to take and a writing exam.  Then, I'd be graduating - with honors! Shocked, surprised, and disappointed in myself that I didn't go back sooner, I immediately made the decision, I WOULD go back to school!

After appealing to the school to be admitted in Fall of 2017 and being denied, since I'd missed the application deadline, I decided to take a class this summer to reinitiate myself into the world of school. So, that's exactly what I'm doing! I started taking an expository writing class and will continue to take at least one class a semester until I can be officially re-admitted to the university in the Fall of 2018, the same year as my daughter!  Ha!  By then, I'll only have 2 classes left and the writing exam!  

In the meantime, I am a 43-year old college student and loving it!