A Lifetime of Learning

"It’s a kind of magic...
One dream one soul, one prize
One goal...
One golden glance of what should be...
One shaft of light that shows the way...
The bell that rings inside your mind, challenging the doors of time."           
Queen - It's A Kind of Magic

What was the "bell" that went off in your mind that caused you to reflect on where you were in your life and where you wanted to be?

For me, it was the birth of my third child.  I loved my role of wife and mother.  I had always wanted and looked forward to raising a family.  But one day, as I sat feeding the youngest baby, I thought "Is this all there is?  Isn't there something more?" 

In high school, the St. Joseph nuns offered me a golden glance of what could be, encouraging me to consider college, but they were ahead of their time.  The thinking back then (the pre Ms Magazine era) ran something like this: sending a girl to college was a waste of money because she was only going to get married and have babies.  And, in my family, there was also the issue of money or rather the lack of it.  I'm sure there must have been financial aid back then, or at least something similar to it, but I knew nothing about such things.  In any case, it wouldn't have mattered - my paycheck was needed at home.  

So, graduating from high school, I worked on Wall Street for two years, eventually marrying and moving to New Hampshire.  Three children and seven years passed before the "bell rang inside my mind" as the dream of a college education reawakened.  And so, the door to my future was challenged, opening just a crack.  Researching adult college courses in New Hampshire, I found the School for Lifelong Learning, as Granite State College was known back then (by the time I graduated, the name had morphed into the College for Lifelong Learning). 

I met with an adviser at the Manchester NH college office who shed a shaft of light that pointed the way to achieving my goal.  She mapped out a plan for my Associates Degree (because, at the time, working towards a bachelor's degree seemed such a huge, insurmountable challenge) and I got to work - one part time class at a time.  Over the years, the magic continued. 

Meeting kindred souls, people in my adult college courses who were dealing with the same day-to-day issues as I and aspired to goals similar to mine; befriending faculty who nurtured the flame of inquisitiveness burning inside of me and who helped me to discover the wonderful world of adult learning - all of this, and more, caused a seismic shift in my perception of what the future could hold for me.

The process of "challenging the doors of time" took thirteen years but I finally earned the prize - my Bachelor's Degree.  The act of achieving my goal was so intoxicating, the magic so necessary to my being, that I decided to move on to the next "door" -  a master's degree.   All these years later, the magic continues to happen, doors keep opening.