Five years ago, I embarked on a new adventure.
For more than a decade I had worked as a radiologic technologist, and although it was a fulfilling career in many ways, there was a missing element in my life I couldn’t pin down. Everything changed one fateful day as I walked into work.
It was April. A cold snap the night before had created a thin invisible layer of ice on the parking lot surface. It only took a few steps before I slipped and broke my ankle. The next six weeks were filled with bed rest and lots of time to think.
I had always wanted to write a children’s book, and there seemed like no better time to do it—until I opened my computer and started typing. I had no experience with writing stories and felt largely inadequate to the task—even for a children’s book.
In storytelling, a character’s journey is started off by an inciting incident and this was mine.
My story continued as I walked onto Weber State University’s campus once more. I graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Advanced Radiology eight years prior. This time I was working toward a Bachelor of Arts in English and Creative Writing. My oldest niece started college the same day. It was not only fun and exciting to see her smiling face on campus, but also a reminder of my “years of experience” since my first days on the same campus.
The next two years were filled with the typical highs and lows of learning and academia. When graduation day came, a sense of accomplishment overwhelmed me as I walked across the stage. What I didn’t expect was the dark unknown chasm of what to do next. How was I going to use my new degree to make a career change? What would that even look like?
As I looked back over my new education, I saw a huge gap in my instruction—fiction writing. The one thing I went back to school to study I never had the chance to learn. Before graduation I had considered graduate school and looked into several school’s programs, but none felt right.
The summer after graduation radiated sunlight everywhere but my direction in life. Out of desperation, I googled online graduate programs in English. I didn’t even know if one existed but was pleasantly surprised to find several. In the end, I decided to apply to the first school I found and researched and started their Master of Arts in creative writing program that fall.
During my first term, the school announced they were creating a fully online Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing, and I was all ears. The idea of holding a terminal degree that I could teach with at a university intrigued me as well as the opportunity to learn fiction writing and write a novel as a thesis—all things that made for a promising career change. I applied and happily made the program change. The next two years of graduate school looked encouraging and exciting.
Queue life altering complications.
Not all complications are unpleasant, but they usually entail some shifting and adjustment. The crazy life changes that ensued next are worthy of their own story at another time but suffice it to say I had a lot to handle with a cross country move and two pregnancies all while finishing my degree and writing a novel.
The start of the year 2020 beamed brightly. Significant events structured my goals for the new year—I would finish my last term of school in March, have a baby right after, attend graduation, and pursue all my goals of publication and teaching with intention for the rest of the year.
Thankfully, the first two major events went off without a hitch, but as I witnessed graduation weekend pass by like any other spring weekend my heart longed for the resolution commencement promises. Why does graduation day mean so much to me? How was I to move forward and still feel the same grand feelings of accomplishment?
I’ve come to realize that graduation day doesn’t signify the end but merely a mile marker along the road of life. Nothing in life stands still. We simply come to the other side of our complications and milestones and have the opportunity to enjoy the greener grass while we gear up for our next step on the journey through life.
So here I stand. In the greener grass of a master’s degree. Looking back over all the hills and valleys of graduate school. And forward to the bright unknown future that lies ahead.
Cheers!