Decisions of My Life

    
       I have made my decision, it is back to school for me. I am tired of my minimum wage-lucky-to-get-a-raise jobs. I have had a series of them in the past thirteen years. None of them ever could or will amount to much. At present I am a janitress, have been for going on three years this past summer. Last Christmas I watched with envy as everyone at work took turns going off on paid vacations all seeming to forget that I would not get one. Nor will I ever. I really was happy for them but I wanted to go too. At about the same time one of my coworkers said something offhand that really struck a nerve in me and started the old thinker to thinking. I realized that no one was ever going to think of me on their level because I was not as educated as they were. The last straw was the fact that even my own family not only thought nothing of the fact that I had not gone to college, but they were planning on following in my footsteps!
     A janitor's job is the care and maintenance of the BUILDING that they are hired to take care of. I was working last winter as a janitor, filling in for my boss who was away on vacation and although I do not remember the beginning of the conversation, one of my coworkers, who has a habit of not throwing away her drinking cups or soda cans with the assumption that I must throw them away for her, made a comment that really irked me. Not so much that it was hateful, far from it. It was a comment made in that offhand manner that implied that she really did believe what she said. She made the comment, "That I had to throw away her bottles, cans, and empty drinking cups because she did not have time to walk in the next room and empty them out to throw them away herself." That statement, once I stopped seeing red things everywhere, made me realize that she thought of herself on a different level than I. Her time is important and apparently mine isn't. She does important work while I only do manual labor. I am in a lower class than she is apparently.
     My boss, bless his little heart, had spoiled her to the point that she thought that I was there as a servant, to be commanded at her whim and pleasure, then he took off on a paid vacation. That is what made me realize that I wanted my own paid vacation. If I stay here in this job I will never, ever get one. Listening to everyone as they came back from one only made it that much worse for me; it started me thinking about what it would take for me to get one. Option A was to have everyone at work chip in twenty bucks and then take a few days off, although I have had to take charity in the past, I do not like it. That plan was out. That left plan B, which was to get a better job. To get a better job, that would take at least a little education. If I was going to do that I decided I had better hurry up since I am already almost fifty I do not have all the time in the world left to complete my education, find a job, then work for at least two years to earn one.
     The final straw that broke the camel's back and got me into the financial aid person to see if this could even be done, was another comment my daughter made, "That if I could bring up three kids with a high school diploma, she could too." Boy didn't that spin my head around! Did she not see the struggle I'd had to endure for the last 15 years? I could finally see the example that I set by going back to school could and would be very far reaching indeed, affecting not only myself but my daughter, my sons, and even my grandchildren.
    I have always believed that when a decision is right for you then everything in your life comes together to help it along. This held true for my decision to go back to school. Within a week I had picked out my career, which was a lot easier for me now than it was in high school. I had filed for and received my funding. Work, well, they gave me their complete support. I have tutors, research assistants and professionals of all sorts that I can ask for help. They even donated a used but working computer to my dream. I have to pay for the internet, of course. When life hands you that many blessings for something then you can rest assured that it is something that you are supposed to be doing. It is a little weird though to have my sons laughingly ask me if I have my homework done and then tell me, "You can't go to Bingo until it is done Mom".