How I Got Here

To truly understand what I'm doing, you have to understand how I got here. It's not easy to make the decision at 47 to go back to school and make a total career change. But I did, and here's why:

1. I got sick. Not just a little sick, not sick and tired, but truly sick. My body had started betraying me. Now I'm the first to admit that I had abused it horribly in the past, and apparently it decided to exact it's cruel revenge. I'm not going to go into details here. I'm not dying, nor do I plan on dying any time soon. I just spent 2 years waking up every morning feeling as if I had been hit by a truck. Every inch of my body hurt. Sitting was painful, standing was painful, pretty much everything I did hurt. Now my doctor was very adamant. "You can not keep doing the job you are doing. You have to have a job that gives you freedom to move, and freedom to sit when you need to. You can NOT be tied to a desk for 8 hours a day, it is not going to work for you." My profession was Customer Service. Customer Service is a euphamism for "being abused by complete strangers because the company you work for has not lived up to their expectations and they want you to fix it NOW." In other words, I was in a chair, tied to a phone, in front of a computer screen for 8 hours a day. I loved my job. I was good at it. I'd had commendations for outstanding performance, letters written to the head of my company praising my efforts. Now I couldn't do it anymore. And it was all I knew how to do. 25 years and my life had to change. Now what?

2. The first two weeks being out of work is great. It's like a mini-vacation. Then boredom sets in. Now I'm pretty sure that Maury Povich is a nice guy. But if I heard him say "You ARE the father" or "You ARE NOT the father" one more time, my brain was going to explode. Along with Dr. Phil's "How's that working for you?", or Judge Judy's "They don't keep me here because I'm gorgeous, they keep me here because I'm smart." My brains were starting to turn into Cream Of Wheat, and leak out of my ears. Not only that, I started to get depressed. I felt like I couldn't do anything anymore. What was the point of getting out of bed, when I had nothing to do?

3. I decided that being permanantly disabled and collecting a check for doing nothing was not for me. My daughter,Lisa had been in school for a while, and was almost finished when she said "Mom, why don't you talk to your doctor about going back to school?" So I did. I told him I wanted to go for Medical Assistant Technician, and everything it involved. I was waiting for him to say "Are you crazy?" Instead, he said, "That's a great idea! That would be perfect for you." My next obstacle was "How am I going to afford this?" A chat with Financial Aid at the school I wanted to go to soon cleared that obstacle, with grants and student loans. Then the self doubt set in. Was I too old for this? I mean, I'm 47. I'll be 48 when I graduate. So I talked to my dad. His response to me was, "Well how old will you be if you don't go to school?" The wisdom of Yoda has my father. So much for that excuse.

So now I'm in school. I have been since November. I have 11 months to go. So I decided to write this blog so you could share this journey with me. Sometimes it will be long, sometimes short, but I'll write every day I'm in school. I'll tell you all the things I'm learning, how I'm doing, what I like and what I hate.

Strap yourselves in..it's going to be a bumpy ride!