More than A Graduation Picture

I opened my phone this morning and a photo memory popped up.

This isn’t unusual. Most days, some random picture from years ago finds its way back onto my screen. And maybe it is random. But I also believe that sometimes we see what we’re supposed to see exactly when we’re supposed to see it.

This morning, it was a picture I had seen plenty of times before. I’d even used it as my profile picture on social media at one point. But for some reason, this time I stopped.

It felt almost like past me was talking to present me.

Pay attention to this.

Pay attention to her.

The picture was from my graduation. Not high school. Not college more than twenty years ago. This one was much more recent.

It was 2024. I was 39 years old, standing there in a black cap and gown, a light blue stole and gold cords, celebrating the master’s degree I had just earned.

Like many educators, I had gone back to school for my master’s. Unlike many, I didn’t do it early in my career. Mine came much later. And now, looking back, I think it came exactly when it was supposed to.

The photo itself is almost picture perfect. Petco Park in San Diego behind me. I’m smiling, looking confident and proud.

And I was proud.

But when I look at that picture now, earning the degree isn't really what I see. I see everything that was happening behind the scenes.

Because, like so many of the milestones that end up meaning the most to us, the real story isn’t what you can see in the picture.

It’s everything it took to get there.

To really tell that story, though, we have to back up a little.

As many of you know, I started my family sooner than I had planned. I was 19 when I became a mom, which meant even earning my bachelor’s degree was a feat in itself. If my in-laws hadn’t opened their home to us while we raised Abby and I finished school, I’m not sure it ever would have happened.

But I had a dream of becoming a teacher, and somehow, I made that dream a reality.

I finished my bachelor's degree while working three part-time jobs. Then came my first teaching job, moving into our own home, marriage, another baby and all the responsibilities that came with building a life and raising a family.

A master’s degree moved further and further down the list.

I poured my time and energy into my family, my students and my career, all while telling myself that eventually I would go back to school. I knew it made sense financially and could open doors professionally, but there was always a reason to wait. For a long time, money was one of those reasons—or at least, I had been told there simply wasn't money for me to do it.

So I waited.

But as the years passed, something in me started changing.

I had spent a long time moving through a marriage in which I had slowly lost pieces of myself. I had devoted so much of who I was to being a mother, a wife and a teacher that I started to wonder who I was outside of all the roles I filled for everyone else.

I began feeling this pull to become more me—whatever that meant. To make choices because I wanted them. To pursue something because it mattered to me. To stop waiting for someone else to tell me it was okay.

So, I did what I do best. I researched.

I found programs that interested me. I crunched the numbers. We talked about it. And still, we kept putting it off.

Until eventually, something in me shifted.

I decided I was just going to do it.

That decision wasn't necessarily met with warmth or enthusiasm at home. At that point in our relationship, choices that felt like independence for me could sometimes create tension between us.

But something was different this time. I wasn't asking myself whether everyone else was comfortable with my decision anymore. I was asking whether I was willing to invest in my own future.

And I was.

If that meant taking out a loan and paying it back myself, I would figure it out. I wanted to challenge myself academically, create more opportunities professionally and prove to myself that I could make a decision about my own life and follow through with it.

So I applied to National University for an online master’s program in Educational Leadership and was accepted.

Then I saw an opportunity for a scholarship. The application required an essay.

Now that I knew I could do.

Writing had always been one of my strengths, so I wrote about my life. About the hardships I had experienced, the cycles I had been born into and the ones I was determined to outgrow. And about what earning this degree could mean for the life I was trying to build.

I submitted it.

And I got the scholarship.

The thing I had put off for years partly because I believed we couldn't afford it?

I was going to earn my master’s degree for free.

Completely free.

And I would be lying if I said there wasn't a little defiance mixed in with the excitement. For so long, money had been one of the reasons I had been given for why this couldn't happen. Suddenly, that reason was gone.

There was a part of me that thought, See? I figured it out anyway.

Maybe I didn't need someone else to believe I could do it. Maybe I just needed to believe I could.

There was no stopping me now.

For two and a half years, I wrote, studied, read, did case studies and interviews and relearned how to accurately cite a paper again.

And, despite being someone who prides herself on being organized, I somehow managed to procrastinate until Sunday to write most of my papers. Any of my friends can attest to this.

There were canceled movie nights, papers written in the car next to Mel on the way to band gigs, assignments completed at gymnastics practice and work done after hours at school while waiting for my oldest to finish play practice.

Grad school became woven into almost every part of my life.

I just kept going.

And then, in the spring of 2023, my life changed.

I made the decision to end my marriage.

Suddenly, my family was being uprooted. My oldest had just graduated from high school. There were so many emotions, decisions and uncertainties about what came next.

And I had three classes left.

I could put school on hold while I dealt with everything happening in my personal life—which would also mean losing my scholarship—or I could keep going through the hard and finish what I had started.

I kept going.

And a few months later, with the fall leaves in full view outside, sitting in the basement of my friend's house where I was temporarily living, I finished my final paper.

My life looked almost nothing like it had when I started the program. I didn't even have a permanent home of my own.

But I had finished.

And I was deeply, deeply proud of myself.

Fast forward to the spring of 2024.

For months, I had been receiving emails about the graduation ceremony in San Diego.

I ignored them.

Of course I wasn't going to fly all the way to California during the last week of school. My life was still in transition, and flying across the country for a graduation ceremony felt unnecessary, impractical—maybe even a little ridiculous.

Then one night, a final reminder arrived. I had one week left to RSVP if I wanted to walk at graduation.

And something stopped me.

Why shouldn't I walk in my own graduation?

Why shouldn't I go all the way to California?

No one was telling me no.

And maybe more importantly, I was finally getting used to not needing anyone to tell me yes.

I knew what I wanted to do.

So I called my longtime family friend Rachel, who lived in the San Diego area, and asked if I could stay with her for the weekend. I called Abby and asked if she wanted to come along and visit one of her best friends who had moved there for school.

And before I knew it, we were on a plane headed straight for San Diego.

What a dream.

I love the beach, and San Diego did not disappoint. But there was something else about that weekend that made me feel like I was on top of the world.

I was in a city I had decided to go to, using money I had decided to spend, celebrating a degree I had decided to pursue.

Celebrating a life I was learning to decide for myself.

And damn, did that feel good.

Graduation day was hot. Abby and Rachel took pictures of me in my cap and gown, and we took pictures together.

Having Rachel there made the weekend even more meaningful. She had known me since some of the earliest years of my life. She had babysat my brother and me and had been almost like a mother figure to me growing up. Now she was standing beside my daughter, telling her stories about my childhood, my family and my big brother Chris, whom Abby never had the chance to meet.

There was something beautifully full-circle about having her there.

Then I walked. I received my diploma.

But standing there that day, I knew I was celebrating so much more than a degree.

Which brings me back to the picture that showed up on my phone this morning.

There she was.

Thirty-nine years old. Black cap and gown. Light blue stole. Gold cords. Petco Park behind her.

Smiling. Confident. Proud.

If you looked at the picture, you would see a woman celebrating her master's degree.

But today, when I looked at her, I saw so much more.

I saw the 19-year-old mother who wasn't sure how she would finish college but did.

I saw the woman who spent years pouring herself into everyone else while putting some of her own dreams on hold.

I saw the woman who finally stopped waiting for the perfect circumstances—or permission—to invest in herself.

I saw the woman who sat in her friend's basement during one of the most uncertain seasons of her life and finished the last paper anyway.

And I saw the woman who got on a plane to California because she had finally learned to ask herself a different question.

Not “Am I allowed to?”

But “Why shouldn't I?”

There she was.

Maybe that's why the picture stopped me this morning.

Sometimes a photograph captures a day. And sometimes, if you look closely enough, it captures an entire story.

Today, I didn't just see the day I graduated.

I saw every version of me it took to get there.

And what a beautiful thing that was to recognize.

Before You Go...

Every story has a lesson hidden inside it.

Here's mine:

Sometimes the biggest thing standing between us and the life we want isn't whether we're capable of creating it. It's whether we've given ourselves permission to try.

And sometimes, we don't realize just how far we've come until something makes us stop, look back and really see the person it took to get here.

A question for you:

What is something you've been waiting for permission to do—and what might happen if you stopped waiting and simply gave yourself permission?