It took me 10 years to get my Associate Degree, here’s why it did and why I’m not upset it took so long.

So, I started college with high expectations. I wanted to do amazing things and save the world…then life happened. I got involved with a person in another state and decided to move in with him. BIG MISTAKE! Although I do not regret the life I have now, I do think it would have been very different had I not made that decision. I’d been almost done with my Associates at that point and had decided to just go for my Bachelors instead, since that was the level I needed to join the teaching profession. I’m kicking myself now, because had I just buckled down and taken that last class I’d have been in a much better financial position than I am now, but I digress.

Having moved to another state, I took a couple jobs to try to pay my bills, having had my relationship severed within weeks of moving there but allowed to stay since I had nowhere else to go and had been persuaded to sell my car while there. I was borrowing a car, driving forty minutes to work and barely eating and sleeping while waiting for my enlistment in the Army to kick in. Finally, desperate, sick, and terribly lonely, I asked my parents to let me stay for a while at home while I waited my final couple weeks to officially enlist and ship out. While at home I got desperately sick, eventually getting pneumonia while in Basic Combat Training. That is a whole other story I’ll write at another time.