Over the past seven years at the restaurant I have learned more than any professor taught me in all the years I went to college. All the years pertaining to the fact that it took me seven years to graduate because I had no idea what I was doing with my life. Straight out of high school with a 3.7 GPA I wanted to start school right away and be done before everyone else. I pictured that professional job, dress-suit attire, heals everyday and flagging down cabs to rush to meetings in the city. Boy was I wrong.

I always wanted to work with children, and I had an amazing woman in my life, Dr. Martha Colliens, who inspired me to want to be a child physiologist. So the summer of 2007 I started at Worcester State College. I loved it. At first. And then I was sitting in a class and we were talking about scenarios. Scenarios of what we would do and the professional way to act if a child told us something traumatic about their past or present. We read a story about this child that was touched inappropriately by his stepfather for years. He kept complaining of headaches and the mom kept bringing him to the doctors who swore nothing was wrong and that maybe he should see a physiatrist. The child ended up telling his physiatrist that his father loved him differently than other fathers loved their sons and explained how they expressed their love for one another every week. After the teacher told us how to handle the situation and how often this happens to young children around the world I was instantly sick and angered. I knew that there was no way that as a profession I could listen to young children tell me horror stories and not want to go and physically hurt someone who has done something so horrible. Child phycology was out.

Spring Semester of 2008 I started at Becker College. My mother was an amazing seamstress, and I had worked in her shop for years working with several Interior Designers – it was something I knew, something I loved, something I was good at. I assumed that taking after my mother would just be my path. I went to Becker for two years, one of which I stayed in a dorm, got moved into a private room after my roommate didn’t like me, and then moved back home in the middle of one of my semesters because worse than the hellish roommate I had was the single room with a width that was the length of my tiny twin bed, a closet that was an old gym locker and it was located on the men’s side on the house. I remember sitting in a furniture class, yes that’s right, I took a class just on furniture, and all of a sudden I asked myself “what in the world am I doing with me life?” I wasn’t happy, I didn’t care what the teacher was explaining. There was a picture of a Louis the Fourteenth chair in the slide show being projected on the wall and she was going on and on about the detail, the high back, and by looking at the legs you could tell it was authentic… and I walked out. I was paying almost $40k a year to learn about furniture? Interior Design was out.

I didn’t want to waste any more time in my life so I went right back to Worcester State and started taking classes on Early Childhood Education. I thought I could help children by teaching instead of trying to help with personal problems. I would still get the young child interaction but be able to sleep at night. Everything was just okay. I wasn’t thrilled, it didn’t move me. I felt like a career was like a relationship, and when you found the right one to be in for the rest of your life there would be butterflies and happy thoughts. The image of that business woman in the dress-suit kept popping back into my head. The classes bored me, and before I knew it I was in the registrars office withdrawing from my classes. Early Childhood Education was out.

So I took the best advice I could find and took a year off from everything. By this point I had been living with my ex for two years already. He was a plasterer by trade, and a pot dealer by career. I worked two jobs to pay for rent and groceries, and was barely ever home. When I was home my time was spent cleaning up the dirty dishes or doing batches upon batches of laundry because for some reason the filth was never ending. He soon became unemployed because of layoffs at his job, but I couldn’t complain considering his unemployment checks were more than my income working 12 hour days. A normal person would have ended the relationship the day he spent over $500 at a lamp shop, and explained it was his new business as he opened the doors to our walk-in closet and showed me his new grow arrangement. He had not only cut a hole in the side of the apartment for irrigation purposes, but our clothes were in a ball on the bed, because his new business was much more important than our clothes. The obsession grew from the occasional bowl to harder substances that emptied our bank accounts. I saw our friends going down worse paths, getting hooked and spending hundreds of dollars a day and stealing from their family to do so. I wanted out but I knew I needed to better myself and have a cushion to fall back on, and to be honest, I loved him. I knew he loved me and I really couldn’t ask for any more. I prayed that he would want more some day too.

I started going back to a Community College and taking core classes that I would need for any degree. I paid cash so the endless amount of college bills I already had didn’t add up anymore than they needed to be. I still had the same two jobs to make ends meet, and with school – I really was never home now. I left the apartment one day, kissed my boyfriend goodbye, he was laying on the couch stoned out of his mind, half asleep but watching Sabrina the Teenage Witch. I came home a few 16 hours later, exhausted to him passed out in the same position, on the same couch, and reruns of Sabrina the Teenage Witch was still running. I knew it was time for me to leave, and the next day I was gone.

I started going to NA for support, the kind of support a friend or family member couldn’t give. It was an amazing feeling being able to talk to others who have been in my exact shoes, who didn’t criticize me for my actions, and who inspired me to be better. With the help and endless strength that the love of my life who I am with now gives me daily, I finished my associates at the local Community College. I transferred to Nichols College where I got my bachelors degree in one year and graduated with a 4.0 in Business Administration. I still think that the business woman in the dress-suit, waving down the cab in the city to get to her next appointment is still in me. But every time I think of where I came from, and the path I took to get here, I have to be proud that I am not that girl that I once was. I have learned from my mistakes, I have grown in a million ways, I am independent and responsible but most importantly, I am not embarrassed of where I have been.

-A