Living to Learn

Happy Birthday Angela!
Living to Learn

I’ve always had a hunger to learn. These days I’m going into debt over it. And it’s a debt large enough to buy a very expensive vehicle. I plan on living long enough to pay it off.
If not – sorry kids – there goes your inheritance.

This is an investment in my future, right? Not just my future but my entire family’s future. Yes, I’m the one doing the work, but my family has had to give up my availability to them. It’s tough sometimes because I know my grandkids will never be this age again. Childhood comes only once. I can never get this time with them again. The trade-off is the prospect of leaving a very large inheritance and finding purpose in my life.

It’s at this time in the semester I really begin to question, why? Midterms. Lengthy essays. Why, oh why, am I putting myself through this? Yes,this is me,playing my violin.

I think it’s a system that really has it backwards. I am paying my professors to educate me, not torture me and stress me out to the point I want to give up. There must be a better way. But millions of people have done it and I will too.

Advice to my 18-year-old self? Don’t take that one-year break after high school you think you deserve. Keep your nose to the grindstone.

I am putting the violin down to give a big shout out to Angela, who graced my life (insert mumble) years ago on November 3, ???? One of my favorite memories of her childhood is watching her walk out of the library at eight years old with a stack of books so high she could barely see over them. Every book in the stack was about animals, mostly dogs. She continues to love animals to this day.

I would love to be with you on your birthday, or at least tuck you in the night before and kiss my thirty something goodnight one final time. But – well, you know – I’ve got my nose to a grindstone.