College thoughts

As I was baking and dusting this evening, I was inspired to listen to a CD from Wink's college acapella singing group: The Brown Derbies. I guess I haven't listened to it in quite a while, because I became nostalgic almost instantly. Overall, college was a really wonderful time in my life. I don't want to trade what I have and know now with that time in my life, but it is tempting. I wish I could just run out the door and run off to a concert. Or meet people at the cafeteria for dinner. Or study and learn and have that be my job. Or (sophomore year) toss my shoes into my suite-mate's room and brush teeth with my bestest buds. I'm realizing that my kids will probably not be as impressed by an old "album" that their daddy sang in, yet for me I am filled with emotions and memories.

It made me realize a few things. One thing is that I've always joked that our kids would at best go to state college and more likely live at home and attend classes. As I think about my college years, I am struck that I really want my kids to have this kind of experience if they want it too. I guess I feel like I would be willing to scrimp and save (and make them take out a LOT of loans) if they were able to get into a school like Brown. In all truth, this is a revelation to me since the money involved seemed totally out of the question.

My life now is so, so different than it was ten years ago. I went to college prep school from Kindergarten until grade 12. I went to an Ivy Leage college with the best of the best (and the richest of the richest). I don't think I'd ever really known a person with a disability until my dad's stroke freshman year of college. I'd never even heard of Speech Pathology until my dad's stroke, and even then had no idea what it really entailed until I started the graduate program!

Now, I work in special education, the public schools with no hope for a promotion or "big break" financially. I spend every day with some of the poorest in the city. I see neglect and abuse daily. I pray that my students will one day graduate from high school, but know that many will not. I sing the exact same songs with a group of disabled students, and on the 500th time we've sung the song, they still don't know it. Some can't even combine 2 words together to form a simple sentence. I am the primary wage earner in the family. I have the privlege of parenting the two most amazing children ever, but I have never met the women that gave birth to them. I live in a city I had never even visited until after I was married.

I feel that I am exactly where God wants me to be right now, but I never would have predicted this path in my life. I hope and pray that my children will have some of the fantastic experiences that I have had and will end right where God wants them to be--even if that is a place that none of us would have predicted.