How I know I can do anything

I am heading to grad school in a matter of days.

I’m getting nervous.

I mean, really, I’m freaking out about being overwhelmed. I actually called my sister and told her to schedule a mental breakdown for me somewhere around the third week of the semester.

But regardless of my feelings, I’m going back to school because I want to show my kids that their goals are worth pursuing, no matter what obstacles may be in the way, or how hard they think it might be.

From the moment I came to terms with the fact that I was going to become a mommy, I decided that the value of a good education was going to drilled into my kids’ head every day. The more education you have, the better. No such thing as a useless degree. 

We brought my daughter home from the hospital to a college dorm room. That’s right — with freshmen. It was a tight fit and at times I was depressed from being surrounded by carefree 18-year-olds, whereas I had to rush to and from class to get my daughter from various babysitters.

But the biggest positive was the fact that we lived on campus, in an academic setting. She was a baby at the time, but I loved telling her how big her backyard was — all 1,200 acres of KSU’s campus. She would come with me to the library, or on the campus bus, or sometimes I had to pack her up and bring her to class.

As a journalism major who waited until the last possible semester to take my full reporting course, I had to take her with me to cover stories. I got an A.

My daughter made me focused. I couldn’t put off studying for the last minute or the night before because who knows if she’d wake up or have me up until four in the morning? I had to study when I could study, no excuses. And if I didn’t get good grades, then I wouldn’t get a good job and we would be living in cramped apartments the rest of our lives (or so I thought).

Having that little girl with the big brown eyes look up at me every day and depend on me for food, shelter, clothing, playtime, EVERYTHING was the biggest motivator I could have had. I pushed myself harder because I didn’t want my professors to think moms couldn’t be good students.

I got an 3.9 gpa my senior year and was able to graduate magna cum laude. As I slipped on my honors cords and carefully placed my graduation cap on my head on the morning of graduation, I snuck a peek at my baby girl giggling on the couch. I leaned over and kissed her goodbye before I hurried to get in line with the other graduates.

After I got my diploma, I scanned the crowd for my baby girl and somehow I spotted her. A tiny little thing in the midst of everyone else. I had stayed focused on her throughout my academic career and because of her role as my bite-size motivator, I was able to make it to the finish line.

As I gear up to do it again, I now have two kids looking up at me with big brown eyes and a husband who is my biggest cheerleader.

If I did it then, I can do it now. Grad school — here I come.

Tara is a mommy of two who blogs about life as a young mother over at The Young Mommy Life. She began graduate school yesterday.