Not a self-made woman

I graduated! I did it! 

Guys, it has been such a long two years! I started this degree back in Michigan, three days after Jesse graduated with his JD and MA. We spent that summer crazy busy: Jesse was studying for the bar, I was taking my first two classes, I was working part-time, we were both taking care of our kids and Nycole's kids when she worked, AND we were gearing up to move to Moldova! 

I did three semesters of work in Moldova, while learning to live in a foreign country and learning a new language. 

The last year I did here in Connecticut, while pregnant and working part time at a great library. I finished my last two classes two weeks after she was born!

I feel incredibly proud, not only of how much I learned and grew through the whole process, but also of how I was able to do it while balancing so much other life stuff. 

But here's the thing: I'm keenly aware that I did not do this on my own. I didn't get to this place by my bootstraps. Sure, I worked REALLY hard. I learned and studied and "overcame obstacles" and all that jazz. But I didn't get to the place where I could do that all by myself. 

First of all, I'm in a loving, stable partnership with a spouse who believes in me and encourages me. We have an egalitarian partnership, allowing us to balance home and kid responsibilities so we can both pursue our passions. 

I have supportive parents who encouraged me, both in this venture and in everything I set my mind to growing up. They paid for my undergraduate education, and they raised me knowing that I would go to college one day. They came from poor families, but got to a place (because of both hard work and societal privilege) where they could support all four of their children in college. 

My dad was the first person in his family to go to college, and he did it by promising to work in the Army for 5 years after graduation. My mom was not given the opportunity to go to college. Their parents worked hard and had hard lives, lives that honestly I know very little about. 

I am the first person in my family to get a Master's degree. 

But it is generations of hard work and privilege that enabled me to get here. I am proud of my accomplishments, humbled by the happenstance of my birth, and grateful for the hard work of the people that came before me that enabled me to get to this place.