I'm a College Student!!!

   The new Monster's Inc. movie stands as one of my favorite animated movies this year.  Mike, the one eyed monster with high self-esteem, is the character I can most relate to.  It cracks me up that he goes through life not even seeing the obstacles to his dream of being a scare monster; I love Mike's positive motivation.  Nothing will stop him from reaching his goals.  Meanwhile, other monsters are negative and cannot understand Mike's vision of success as theirs are so muddled and lackluster.

     I can relate to this character 100%.  Almost seven months ago I embarked on finally achieving my goal of returning and finishing my college degree.  I am not your average aged college student, so returning to a place of education that houses students roughly the age of my own child made me feel out of sorts to say the least.  The age disparity was the least of my worries.  My stress stemmed from the class subject matters.  I had not been back to school in so many years and was worried about not understanding the modern day concepts taught.   Once the classes started, my stress was unfounded.  My mind casually nestled itself into the subjects easily and absorbed every ounce of knowledge.  It was as if it soaking the knowledge in was quenching my minds long standing thirst.  My surprise was one of happiness and fulfillment.  Returning to college revived me in a way I never thought would happen. 

     Returning to college opened up doors in my mind that had long been secured and left dusty and cobwebbed.  Once these doors were cracked open, floods of creativity poured out of them.  I realized that I had strengths in activities I had always shied away from, like poetry.  Now writing, poetry, photography and other creative processes exude out of my mind.   It was a difficult journey to decide to return to college.  I struggled within myself to find reasons not to return.  At the time I was living through my doubts and negative thinking.  Once I snapped out of the destructive thinking phase, I got back on the track to my goal of gaining my degree.  Returning allowed me to find myself once again and pursue avenues I had not dared to in the past.

     My happiness at returning to college pervades my life daily.  It is not possible for me to contain my pride and happiness since I am finally where I want to be.  My family is proud of my excellent grades and I am proud of myself too.  My gratefulness at being able to attend college is beyond measure and I daily encourage my kids to reach for that goal too.  I think the only thing that my entire family is not thrilled about is that, like Mike the Monster, I am constantly running around yelling “I’m a COLLEGE STUDENT”!!!

 Remember your long forgotten goals?  Pull them out of the dusty cobwebs and start toward them again! Have a positively blessed day everyone!!!