At the end of 2019, I decided my word for 2020 would be ‘Me’. Meaning I would do more for myself when possible because, as a mother of 3, I normally put myself last. We all know the difficulties that 2020 brought, so a lot of my plans were put on hold. I couldn’t really say “Yes!” to new adventures, and a lot of things I would have liked to do were canceled.
One thing that I was still able to do, however, was start cosmetology school!
I was a stay at home mom for a long time, and that worked best for our family so we didn’t have to try to afford child care. My husband and I always said that when our son was in first grade, I would go back to work since all of our kids would then be in school all day. Unfortunately, I had not decided what I wanted to do as a career before having kids. I knew I didn’t want to just have any job, I wanted to do something that I enjoyed but that was still flexible enough just in case my kids needed me throughout the day.
I had toyed around with the idea of cosmetology school before, but I had never taken the plunge. I floated the idea to my husband and a couple of friends, and they all thought it sounded like a good fit for me. So even though I was terrified to start something new, I signed up! There were so many things that ran through my mind: I knew that I was getting started a lot later in life than many of the other girls would be and I knew that it would be hard to be away from our kids.
I decided on night school because I started while my son had a half-day schedule at school. It was a bit of a tough adjustment because I was so used to being home with the kids every night, but I loved school as soon as it started.
Here I am, a year later and only a few more months until I graduate and I’m so proud of myself for sticking it out on days I wanted to quit.
I never gave up on myself, and I also get to show my kids that no matter the stage of their life, or their age, they can still do something for themselves and try something new.
I’m writing this to let anyone else know that you too can take the leap. If there’s something you want to try, have faith in yourself that you can also do something you want. I know if I would have started school when I first thought about it, I would be farther along in my career, and I could have let that hold me back. I’m so glad I didn’t.
