There I was, eight months pregnant, and squeezing myself into one of those student chairs with the desk attached. The admissions person at the campus tour offered me the instructor’s chair, but at this point, I was better off keeping my beached-whale body jammed within the desk than getting up in front of a crowd to move to the front of the room. Most of the other prospective students were teenagers and were visiting the University of Akron branch campus with their parents. I was in my early twenties and accompanied by my husband, my 11-month-old son, and my soon-to-be-born daughter. I had enough attention already.

I had gone to college when I was eighteen, but it didn’t keep. While at the University of Toledo, I spent so many days in bed, the weight of my depression holding me down. In those moments, I didn’t mind. Depression felt like a human-sized, furry kitty that laid on my chest and assured me that I shouldn’t get up; that there were too many scary things “out there.” She whispered in my ear, “it’s OK, honey, your bed and I are here for you. And we’ll never leave you.” I didn’t even realize it was depression, I thought I was just lazy. At night, I avoided panic attacks about homework (therefore avoiding homework), having no money for next quarter’s tuition, and my grades by hanging out with my crazy roommate, Brian, pulling pranks, playing euchre, or watching our favorite Australian movie about drag queens, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert for the hundredth time.

*By the way, if you haven’t seen Priscilla, watch it on Prime. Great movie, great soundtrack, great costumes, great comebacks. 

Not surprisingly, after two quarters, I dropped out. My mom thought I was out partying every night and sleeping in all day. I didn’t know how to correct her. So I didn’t.

My boyfriend was a little older than me and settled into his accounting career in Los Angeles. Since I stopped going to school, we got married. It’s not like I was doing anything else. 

FUNNY STORY – when I told him I was dropping out of school, over the phone because . . . LA, he came up with a plan. He would come to Ohio to introduce me to his parents Memorial Day weekend, then he would come back to Ohio AGAIN for July Fourth so we could get engaged, and then . . . I didn’t hear the rest. Something about long distance being easier while planning a wedding (????). All I could think was, “Did he just propose to me without actually proposing to me?!” Then I heard, “What do you think?” Um, okaaayyy?

So I was married at 20, a homeowner at 21, and a parent of two at 24. I decided that it was time to go back to school. What new mom doesn’t need stacks of descriptive astronomy homework? 

After being a part time student, then a full-time student with a partial honors scholarship, it felt like I was on my way to graduation. But halfway through my junior year, it happened again. My fat, furry kitty was back. She rode along in the car when I commuted to school. Some days she guided me to McDonald’s on the way to class, to comfort me with an apple pie, ice cream, and a Coke. Then I would sit in the car outside the buildings on campus and stare as other students went to class and all I could do was nothing. Sometimes the fat, furry kitty cooed gently while driving to campus that if I hit one of those telephone poles, and it looked like an accident, then my husband would get the life insurance payout and he and the kids would be much better off without me. 

I told my advisor that I was forfeiting my scholarship. Then a few months later, I just stopped going to school altogether. I was 28.

But my kids needed me. My husband needed me. I needed me – I needed to be my true self again. So I got help. Many people who have been on antidepressants have an experience like mine – trying one medication, learning it’s not quite right. Maybe it doesn’t work well for you, maybe it has terrible side effects. So then try another one. And maybe another one after that. I finally found the self I was looking for.

Life went on. The kids started school, my husband changed jobs, we moved to Orlando. I worked at Disney World and got screamed at by guests, and despite the abuse from strangers who told me their vacations were “less than magical,” my antidepressant kept me going. Eventually I left the front desk and got a real desk working for a friend at a new nonprofit. I tried to find other jobs later, but . . . no college degree. I had left that possibility behind me; after all, I was in my forties. But I really loved working in nonprofit, and I excelled at the work. After a few years, my friend left that organization. When she began working for a more established charity, she asked me to join her, and I did.

I realized pretty quickly at this new organization that if I wanted to get promoted, the only way to get there was to have a bachelor’s degree. Given my track record, I was unsure that it was the right thing to do. After a year of consideration, I learned that the local community college offered a bachelor’s degree for “working adults” who already earned about half of their college credits. And after dropping out of college twice, my only chance at finishing school was through a community college. So I applied and enrolled. My now 18-year-old daughter and I would start college at the same time.

Just like at Akron, it started smoothly . . . except for math class, which often devolved into fits of tears, even when my husband tried to help me study. But I got through it. And then accounting class. Then marketing. The pandemic came along and I transitioned to online classes. I could do that, too and still get As. Before I knew it, I was only one semester away from graduation. 

The pandemic was mostly OK to my family until the Delta variant (if you consider your two college kids moving back to your “empty nest-sized” home to ride out a global pandemic OK). But life, as it does, chose this particular moment to throw us a curveball. My husband got laid off; he searched for a job for months, we made the decision to move back to Ohio. 

Through it all, I continued my classes online. I continued to be named to the Dean’s or President’s list every semester. In January of my final semester, I applied for graduation. In March, I ordered my cap and gown. In April, I turned in my capstone project. And in May, the previously unthinkable happened. I flew to Orlando to walk across the stage, hug the president of Valencia College, and collect my diploma. I was 45. 

Oh, and that fat furry kitty can go fuck herself.