I love school. It has consistently been the place that I feel at home. As a child with glasses, school became the place that I was expected to apply myself, and apply myself I did. Not that I'm exceptionally intelligent or any such nonsense; rather, I am incredibly good at following directions. That, combined with the fact that I am known as a people-pleaser, produced an A student.
My parents let me take violin lessons, which I asked them for at the age of 7. For a few years, I applied myself to violin and school as well. But then I went back to just school. And then in High School, I got my first job, which I did a great job at, but my first love was always school. As a teenager with glasses, I relished spending friday nights in my room making flashcards for AP exams. School was what I was good at doing.
I always expected to get accepted to some University somewhere, graduate in 3.5-4 years, and start wearing pencil skirts at my young professional job, but that dream was interrupted when I dropped out of college at the end of my sophomore year. I was going to school in Nashville and loved nearly everything about the South, and was seeing my dreams of working in the Christian Music Industry materialize before my eyes as I attended marketing meetings at record labels and interned for a management firm.
Over time I began to feel some trepidation about the field I was getting into. I began to feel spiritually confused, and I could not reconcile myself to the fact that I was working in an industry designed to exploit the name of Jesus for as much cash as possible. Believe me, there are some extremely legitimate individuals out there. But there are also a whole lot of sleazy ones too. So, disheartened by the things I'd been blessed to see before finishing a $100,000 specialized degree, I packed up and came back to California without any plans, or ideas, or plans for ideas.
My own personal response to what I'd witnessed in Nashville was to strive for pure spiritual authenticity: I was incredibly cynical. I wanted only to use my hands and feet to actively serve God. I wanted to pursue work full-time as a missionary, or something that I could not be cynical about. But I secretly wanted to go back to school too. But I believed that school was no mission field (how wrong I was), and to go back only seemed self-gratifying.
I started working at a nursing facility. I worked in the kitchen, doing the lowest form of serving; I was not the face that prepared or handed out the meals to all of the residents. Rather, I remained in the back filling Dixie cups with various liquids of water thickness, nectar thickness or pudding thickness. All day long. In between beverage prep time, I would also assemble the trays with the necessary eating instruments and meal cards to accommodate every level of ability and/or dietary restriction. It was repetitive and in no way stimulating. Only three other people worked in the kitchen, but no one spoke to the new girl. But for once, I felt as if I was doing work that would make Jesus smile. I was helping to feed those that could not feed themselves.
I lasted only a month at the nursing home, before taking a job as a barista at a brand new coffee shop in town, where I quickly made friends that have by now become family. It was a learning experience for me, but as enjoyable as it was, a guilty conscience tugged at me daily as I fed people's weekly caffeine addictions that amounted to enough money to feed several starving families.
Years passed, jobs came and went, but a conversation with my dad eventually led me to apply to a few universities and see if any of them were interested in me. Though I had been uncertain about even pursuing the idea of school, my dad put it to me quite simply one afternoon. He set me straight about needing to actually be using my hands to dig wells or deliver food to starving children; those are wonderful things to do, but they are also not possible without the support of other people, all with different abilities and interests. As for school, he looked me straight in the eyes and said, "Noelle, most people don't like school. Its not normal that you do. And for you to truly love school, and miss it this bad, well that tells me that its something that God has put in you, and that means its good."
I applied to, and was accepted by, my old university in Tennessee, and I was thrilled.
And then I met Daniel. We met through inexplicable circumstances entirely out of our control; I was literally on the road back to Nashville to finish my degree (a different one this time, but between the two years I'd done there and the time I'd spent at the local community college while I was at home, I would be able to graduate in a year) when we began to suspect that God had something in store for us, concerning each other. And my dream of finally getting a degree disappeared again, as unforeseen events brought me and my car stuffed with all of my belongings 2000 miles west just one week after I'd arrived and moved back in.
Daniel and I dated long distance for a year, the first months of which I dealt with extreme insecurity. Mind you, I've never been super confident in myself, but this was a new low. Here I was, a college drop out and 23 years old. What did I come with? A sizable amount of credit card debt and a job at Kohls that I was slightly embarrassed to admit to. And then there was Daniel; Bachelor's and Masters degrees by 23, professional career just 3 months after graduation. And then all of the guys that he lived with were also engineers. Every single one.
While we dated long distance, I drove up to San Jose twice a month and Daniel drove down to see me on the weekends in between. I loved driving north to see him, but hated that I felt like a fish out of water while I was there; everyone was so smart and accomplished and successful. And then there was me. Makin' minimum wage at Kohls 'cause I was a college drop out, livin' in a dead-end town.
I placed all of my value and self-worth on my accomplishments, and due to my perceived lack thereof, consistently felt like garbage. Worthless. A disappointment. And definitely not good enough for someone like Daniel.
But just months after we began to date, an amazing thing happened, and recessions and budget cuts in the state of California collided such that in the fall of 2010, the CSU system, which had previously shut down on all new admissions due to lack of funds, opened its doors to only upper division senior standing students with 90 units or more, and I was informed that in January of 2011 I would begin to finish what I'd started so many years before, at San Jose State University.
I just knew that once I had my degree, I'd feel like I belonged. I would feel worthy.
Now I'm on the other side. Almost. The finish line is in sight. Its there. In four months, I will officially have earned a Bachelor's Degree in English Literature, with a minor in Business. And I'm excited, really I am. And not just because I began college 7 years ago, although that is part of it. But I know that this is where God has brought me, and this is what He has allowed, and that makes me truly excited for the future.
But I love school, remember? And I have this super caring and encouraging husband that wants to help me reach all of my goals and turn all of my dreams into reality. So when I started to think about grad school last fall, he told me that if its what I wanted to do, I should do it. And the idea of having as many degrees as my husband, and of feeling like a bit of an expert on one topic at least, was very very enticing.
I prayed about it. Our friends prayed about it. But then I began to wonder if, since I don't have any desire to teach, a Masters in English wouldn't be just a little bit wasteful: $30,000 for a piece of paper and my own never ending supply of self-satisfaction. However, maybe an MBA wouldn't be so wasteful; after all, business is something that I can see myself doing (it was, in fact, what I'd started out studying), even if only in the form of my long dreamed of bakery (Happy Noelle's Bakery and Good Time Treats). Back and forth I went, every month, praying for God to show me if I should study the subject that I love but is impractical, or the practical one that I don't really love.
For eight months this continued, until one day this summer when I finally experienced peace on the subject. After eight months of uncertainties, after one semi-successful attempt at the GRE, I decided Graduate school was not for me.
I know Daniel wants to fulfill all my dreams, and I do agree with him: I'm sure I would be a better writer after going through the Masters program at SJSU. I'm sure I would have a more developed sense of self as well. These are good things to be sure, but they are only good.
They are also distractions.
While Daniel couldn't have been more encouraging, he was however, slightly off-base. His heart could not be more beautiful, and his desire to help me is stunning, but Grad school was never one of my dreams. It was a vain gratification of my desires and of my self-worth. Don't get me wrong, I would love to continue to study English Literature just because I truly love the subject, but there was no small part of me that looked forward to feeling smart, feeling authoritative, and making myself feel elevated. Which is really really dumb, because its just another piece of paper. But you can see how messed up this whole school saga had become and how entwined with my own self-worth it was.
But Daniel and I do have dreams. Together dreams. I love Daniel's heart, and I love his dream of having a house in the Santa Cruz mountains; a big house, with a big garden, where our friends are always welcome and I can leave pies to cool on kitchen window sills. His dream is worth more than gold to me.
And then there is my dream, of someday adopting half a dozen babies. Since I was four I have maintained that I don't need to have my own kids, I just want to adopt babies that don't have a home or loving family. While Daniel and I plan on making a few of our own, I still want to give love and a home to children without. And just like building a house in the Santa Cruz mountain, buying babies costs money. Lots of it.
But I don't want to forsake our real dreams for my own vanity. I don't want to forget what God has put inside of us, and pursue lesser things. I have no idea what I'm going to do with only a Bachelor's degree in English and no desire to teach (or credential, more importantly). But I trust that God will provide for our needs. And Daniel and I will choose to continue to seek Him. And maybe someday we'll have our dream house and a passel of babies to fill it with. Maybe we never will. But I can live happily, and be satisfied with myself knowing I did not forsake our dreams in the name of pride.
