Accepting Acceptance

School has overtaken my life. And some how, I'm rather okay with that.

I have spent years of my life thinking I wasn't smart enough--not pretty enough--just never enough, for whatever this world had in store for me.

Melissa, my sister and best friend, was the smart one. I remember when she was in high school and all these advertisements were sent to our house---"Come to our College" they would collectively say. Melissa had a good head on her shoulders but she was lacking in the trust fund department. So she did what most high school graduates did in Brevard County--she went to B.C.C. Brevard Community College, we were told, was a great school and it was just a stepping stone to go on to a four year college or university. That is, if you ever made it out of there with a degree. A lot of people stopped after a while--the Shea girls were no exception. Melissa had but one class to take to get her Associates degree...one...that's all. She's been out of school for over ten years now--she's gotten married, has three beautiful kids, a house, two cars, and just one class to take.

When I was in high school....
...let's just say that I wasn't on the honor roll. I barely passed. It was all because of Math (well, my inability to understand and prove mathematical theorems). But it was my senior year and I was going to have fun with my friends, not worry about college because I assumed that while I was a less than stellar student, some college would be fighting its way into my mailbox to say that they were "so happy they found me, would I please go to their school." Those letters never came.

After high school I did a whopping two semesters at B.C.C. before I stopped going to school entirely. I was burnt out--I didn't know what I wanted to do anymore and I was getting terrible grades. I did well in the classes that I had some sort of interest in, but the rest of them could fuck off, as far as I was concerned. So I stopped going to school and I worked for a while. And I moved around for a bit. Out of my Dad's house in Indian Harbour Beach to my sister's place in West Palm Beach. From one family member to another---I became "that person." I left West Palm after two years to move out to California. I stayed with a friend and her parents for two months and realized this just wasn't the state for me. I made leaps and bounds for getting out of a red state, to live a red house in a blue state. This is not to say that living with my friend's family was like being on Crossfire...it wasn't. I just knew I didn't belong there--and I missed my family. I remember the call I made to my mom, who was living in Naperville, Illinois at the time.

I told her that I didn't want to go back to Florida--it would only be a step back. She bought me a one way ticket on Southwest Airlines for $53 from San Diego to Chicago on the condition that I get back into school. It took about a year and a half or so for that condition to iron itself out. I was frightened of going back to school. It wasn't about being so much older than many of the students--it was the anxiety of "what if I choose the wrong profession?" One of the conditions of living at my mother's house was that I HAD to go to church. It was not an option. I tried to get out of it many times--more because of the oppressive nature of this requirement rather than my belief in God. In all of these things, the only thing that was constant was my faith. So I started small when I went back--taking a religion course, a business course, an English course and a course on Alfred Hitchcock's movies.

I went to College of DuPage for two years--during which I had this insane notion to move to my favorite city in all of the world--Boston. I went to visit my family there and checked out Simmons College, in hopes of getting into the Ivy League of Women's Colleges. I was plotting out this move with a friend of mine and there was some question as to whether she would be able to go or not. Boston has been my dream city since I was a little girl. I knew I couldn't afford it on my own so I thought that I had better come up with a back up plan.

During the school year, a representative of Roosevelt University in Chicago had called me and said that I was eligible to get a scholarship of 5K if I went to RU. The day that I applied for Roosevelt to be my back up school is the day that my friend im'ed me, telling me she couldn't go to Boston. About a month later, I was driving to the airport to visit my family in Florida and I got a call from Roosevelt, inviting me to enroll in the university. I got in. Somebody wanted me. I still hadn't heard from Simmons but I decided to throw caution to the wind and take the scholarship and the hand that Roosevelt was offering. A month and a half later, Simmons wrote me a letter. They accepted me too.

Because I had already taken RU up on their offer, I respectfully declined to attend Simmons. I know now that I made the best decision. I transferred on to Roosevelt University--I have over a 3.0 gpa and I've realized that I'm rather smart. Sure I'm 30 and I'm getting my Bachelors in English with a minor in Women and Gender Studies in the Spring...but I earned it. That is mine.

In all of this, I have realized that I wasn't stupid before. I just didn't know what I wanted or what wanted me.

My mom says that some people are late bloomers...perhaps she is right. And as the Radiohead song suggests, "everything's in its right place."