Well, it is official….. I have a degree. I have completed my business program and I am a college graduate.

This is something I never thought I would be able to say.

This is something I never thought I would want to accomplish, but my mind changed, my goals changed and I did it.

It is over.

I am kind of in shock. Not because I did complete it, I always knew I would make this happen once I started the process. I am shocked because it doesn’t seem that long that I began this journey and here I am finished with it.

It was brutal. Nothing fun about being in college while you are a grown up with major adult responsibilities. Doing homework while your kids are playing. Taking tests while your husband is doing something fun. Paying for tuition instead of getting your hair done. Working, parenting, and schooling was by far the hardest thing I have ever done. For 4 years I have carried a guilt about not being a good mom, wife, family member, friend….anything, because I had this huge thing to take care of. Squeezing in discussions, assignments, quizzes any place I could. I have felt bad for not returning phone calls, for missing bedtime stories, for being so fucking mentally exhausted. I have beat myself up for deciding to do this because it has interrupted the lives of my family. And just like that…it is over.

Although it did interrupt so much. We had to push back our wedding because of it. I had to take a final 4 hours after giving birth….NO LIE. I literally took a final in a hospital bed getting skin to skin with Cameron 4 hours after he was born. I had a group project due on my honeymoon. I took a quiz the morning of my wedding. This has been nothing but a HUGE interruption. BUT IT IS OVER.

And now what?? I really have no idea. I want to take this week to enjoy and celebrate. I want to take this feeling, this incredible feeling I have never, ever felt for myself and swim in it for a few days. This feeling of pride that I know others have felt for me, but yet I have NEVER felt for myself. I know I have accomplished so much in life. But this is something so incredibly HUGE for me. I am so freaking proud of ME! The amount of times I thought I could not do this. How impossible it felt. How difficult it was. How demanding it became of an already insanely demanding life…..I DID IT. I pushed, I cried, I stressed, I exhausted myself….I did it.

I am proud. I am happy. I am a badass……I AM A GRADUATE.

xoxo

The Shitty Housewife

Jan O