Who would have ever thought that a 40-year-old divorced mother of three would start back to college? To be honest, I never really thought it would be a reality until I did it!
I've worked my job as a bakery manager in a local grocery store for 20 years. While my peers were going to college and then building professional careers, I was working full time, having babies and dreaming about what I thought was only a fantasy: getting an education and working in an environment that I knew I was intellectually suited for.
After telling my friends and associates year after year, "one day I am going to go college and make a new career for myself," I woke up one morning five years ago—36 years old, divorced and a mother of three daughters. It was time to take action.
My first plan was to start again on my own. Over the years, I built a house and focused on raising my daughters. Now, with financial aid attainable, my own daughters were beginning to branch out of high school into continuing education, and I had no choice but to "put my money where my mouth was." I enrolled into Floyd College, which was my introduction into a wonderful, gloriously different type of environment.
With one year of college behind me and age 41 just around the corner, I feel for the first time in my life that I am beginning to discover the "real me," and love the person that I am.
If my story inspires anyone person out there to take a stab at college then it has served its purpose. Embrace life. Make your children proud ... make yourself proud.
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