Gradumecation

 

Here is how the story goes.  When Dave and I were young(er) and first married, he worked as a car salesman, and I worked at my same damn lab job + was finishing up my Masters.  This was in 2008.  And it was a hard year for everyone, everywhere.  Car sales were so so slow, and Dave was let go.  At the time it was pretty stressful.  I was anxious to get through with school, quit my damn lab job, and start a family.  Yet, much to our dismay, things wouldn't work out that way.  Dave would have to start from scratch.  

When Jude was born, we thought Dave would be finished with school within two years, and I daydreamed of quitting my damn lab job and living the life at home.  Bonbons and all.  But, life has it's twists and turns and here it is now four years later.  Dave has his degree.  

 

 

That is the short of it.  The really short of it.  The long of it includes stress, deadlines, time-away, missed vacations, money, late-nights and early mornings--but also pride, knowledge, growth, and late night talks about the good things--classes, teachers, classmates.   

Dave will grumble when he reads this, but did you know when I met him and said, "Hey, why not try school?"  He said something like, "I can learn all I need to by myself.  Why should I learn what someone else tells me to learn?"  I sat there in his room in his sister's basement, dumbfounded.  I mean, I'm such a schooler, that my jaw probably dropped--and I know my eyes rolled.  School is just what you do, right?  I thought, "because, you'll meet that one professor who will change your life.  you'll learn about that one thing, and it'll become your thing.  you'll gain from it, you always will."  

I tell this story because in the end, I was right.  Heh, heh, heh. 

And although he might not notice it himself, I was there next to him, witnessing a change in him with each passing year.  In the beginning, classes were begrudged.  Tests were crammed, classes were missed.  

All the while me thinking, "OK, this is not how I would do it."  

And then, when he became more focused into his area of study, professors were cool, homework was mapped out, school was priority.  He was fully engaged in all his classes, professors knew his name, he sat in the front row.  

I lit up as we talked about school, and enviously thought, "OK, this is not how I would do it."   

(Back row, quiet girl by heart). 

But here is the true marvel.  As the years went by, things got busy for us.  We had a kid, then moved, then moved again.  He found a job in his field, and started from the bottom up.  He worked lonnnnng hours.  We had another kid.  He studied late into the wee hours of the night, and then was up in the wee hours of the morning quieting babies, feeding babies, getting the kids ready and then off to daycare for the day.  He subcontracted and DIYed our first ever remodeling job at our new house.  All that will make anyone's head spin, but this is the part I marvel about:  he did it without complaining once.  And he did it while effortlessly taking the time to be present for the kids, and for me.  I'm telling you--it's this trait continually gets me everytime.   How does he do it?

Four years later, Dave has his degree and is really in his element.  So soon life could change.  I mean, it could be that I could quit my damn lab job.  Dave could get a different job.  I could work part-time. Dave could work less hours.  I could take yoga in the morning, and private tennis lessons in the afternoon.  I could bake, and garden, and read, and shuttle the kids around, and all of the other things people dream about when they think of staying at home. ;)  

Truth is, we've been at this school thing so long, I don't know what life will be like now that it is over.  But, I guess it just feels so good to get to the end of a road, and see open sky. 

**Cheers to you, Dave!** 

 

**And Cheers to Us, too!**

*Pics are from graduation weekend, in which I failed at pictures.  If you came, thank you soooo much!  Really means the world to us.