Lay Down Sally

In my first blog post here 6 years ago I talked about the signs of adulthood as I prepared to graduate with a Master’s degree in Library and Information Science. We can all name the traditional signals of adulthood (not necessarily in the following order, life is not convenient): Graduating from high school and, hopefully, college. Getting married. Having a child. Buying a house. Getting a job (or jobs) that total up to 40+ hours a week. Getting a job with benefits. Getting into a work situation where you only have to work one job to pay all the bills. Starting a 401K…

I am now marking an equally important rite of passage. I’m paying off a symbol of adulthood. Ladies and gentleman, today I made my last student loan payment. Good-bye Sallie Mae.

I had no idea, NO IDEA, what it meant to take on a 20-year debt burden when I was 18 years old. It was expected that I would go to college – by my family, my high school teachers and myself, and I went. I signed the promissory notes. I didn’t think that much about it. I’d never been in debt. Didn’t have a credit card yet, of course, or even a checking account. And yet I was taking on a burden that would be with me into my 40s. It was harder in the beginning.

I loved college. I wouldn’t be where I am today without college, in any sense. I struggled through adolescence but I Came Of Age at Michigan State University with a vengeance. I’m not sorry I spent that money, I’m not sorry I borrowed it, and I’m not sorry it took me this long to pay it off. My education was worth every penny paid for it.

At this point I want to pause and say also that it would not have been possible for me to attend and do well in college without other contributing factors, most specifically the support and expectations of my family. Some of that is class-based, yes, and some of it is simply that my family loves me and wants me to do well in life. They had expectations of me that helped me to succeed. They celebrated milestones and asked me how class was going and what I thought of the school every time I saw them for my entire career. They were consistent and supportive and they cared. My God, I would have been more worried to tell my uncles that I was “taking a semester off” than to tell my mom. Getting myself into a position where I could support myself and contribute to the general upward movement of my community and, in turn, this nation, was my job, was my responsibility. I wasn’t at school to play. And I got that message clearly.

And no one, not even once, wondered aloud in my presence why I was getting degrees in English and Women’s Studies when those degrees didn’t promise an immediate financial pay-off. They let it stand as my business and my business alone.

And they put their money where their mouth was. When I graduated from high school it was clear that I did not have the money for college.

We’d filled out all the paperwork and with my mother’s income and expected contribution (even with loans) and my jobs (and loans from multiple sources), we were several thousand short per year according to what MSU told us we’d need. My grandmother called her brother, my Great Uncle Duane, and explained the situation. He and his wife Ruby weren’t able to have children and she had already died by then. He was living alone in Missouri and he sent the difference. Every year. He even sent money to help me travel abroad the summer after my junior year. And he didn’t ask me to pay it back; he gave it to me.

I also had support in grad school. My employer paid the vast majority of my tuition. I cannot extend them enough thanks or appreciation. They have made it possible for me to support myself for the rest of my life as I was simply was not willing to take on more loans to further my education 10 years ago.

Hubby was a dream Hubby during grad school. We had moved into a large, “luxury” apartment so we would have the benefits of nice digs without the burden of keeping up a house while I was working full time and going to school full time for three years. We had a washer/dryer in the unit – Hubby did all the laundry. We had a study – hubby consented immediately to buying me a desk with a hutch and a bookshelf so I had a comfortable place to work. I didn’t clean a bathroom or vacuum a floor for three years. And his expectations of regular, healthy meals were adjusted without a word of complaint, ever. We ate a lot of convenience foods from the grocery store. And the one time I announced that I was taking a semester off he came down on me like a house of bricks. “No-you-are-not,” he said definitively. “You are finishing this degree.”

Now I feel… wistful. Not jubilant. Not excited. I feel ponderous. It’s been a long haul. And I’ve finally made it.

…But let me tell you a little secret. I want to get another degree!