LYNX LIFE LIBRARY

Fifteen years ago, I was preparing to complete my undergraduate English degree from a state school in North Florida, and I found myself at a crossroads. As a brooding creative writing major, I had dreams of chasing great stories up the California coast in a convertible next to the likes of Hunter S. Thompson; of working at a metropolitan news desk overnight, publishing breaking stories that the rest of the world would wake up to; and of having enough adventures to fill the pages of the novels I knew I had to write. It was all of that, or I could go to grad school to keep learning, a completely different dream that I’d hoped would eventually allow me to teach on a college campus one day, developing scholarship on literary theory new and old and publishing works of social justice while wearing tweed coats. 

After some deliberation, I decided that at just 22 years old, I wasn't quite ready for tweed. I had spent my entire life thus far learning in a formal setting. I wanted to make the real world my classroom for a bit. I chose to chase a career in writing and hit the open road, so to speak.

Moving from Florida to Colorado, I took my first job at the inside-sales desk of a tiny alt-weekly newspaper in Boulder, where I fielded calls from missed connections, newly budding dispensaries, and pet mediums. My boss there was eclectic but ultimately volatile. It didn't last long, but I felt pretty cool while it did. Next, I wrote a few stories for a regional bridal magazine the year that I got married. And I did freelance marketing work for a natural foods grocery store, crunchy kinds of stuff. Then I got a job in layout and design for a big newspaper downtown, where I worked the night shift with a growing pregnant belly. After a year or so, they laid me off, then hired me again, then laid me off again. I bought a house, I grew a family, then a pandemic hit, and my young son got cancer. 

The career that I'd dreamed of began to slink further and further into the background, and the prospect of going back to school felt further and further from the realm of possibility. I began to let go of the dream of teaching writing at the college level and took a position teaching K-12 art. And to my sheer joy, it turned out to be a dream! I had my own classroom, made my own lesson plans and designed my own projects and bulletin boards and art shows. And my students! I loved my students. I had long suspected I'd enjoy teaching, and this position only affirmed that. And while I did love art, it made me wonder if I actually could still teach my first love: writing. I was more motivated to try than ever.

As many of my fellow students at CU Denver can attest to, deciding to invest in your education a little later in life is an enormous first step. But the choice to attend college comes with many other challenges and hurdles—tight finances, personal responsibilities, poor proximity to a school with a relevant program, struggles with health, growth of a family. And those that actually can manage to align all of the factors necessary to begin a college program on an alternative schedule must also be able to sustain these circumstances for multiple years in a row. It's not always possible. It's not always realistic. And there is no shame in starting late, starting over, pausing, stopping, or reevaluating your trajectory. 

That is to say, whether your own educational journey is altered by a logistical complication or a philosophical one; whether you want to take a chance in a new place, doing a new thing; or whether you just don't quite believe in yourself yet, education unfolds itself to you at any age. And while it can feel like failure to find yourself on an alternative academic schedule—to be nearly 40 and just beginning the career you've always dreamed of, as is my case, or to don the identity of "non-traditional student," whatever your age—I have found the experience to be entirely edifying and liberating. In the years that I spent putting off the graduate degree I knew I eventually wanted (but wasn't ready for at 22), I gained invaluable life experience and cultivated my mind to reflect a more eclectic knowledge, more capable of creation than ever before.

When I am hanging out in the TA offices with my peers, or in the Writing Lab with the other consultants, the truth is that I am often insecure to be starting over. I make jokes about being an aging millennial, that I bring "mom energy" to the party, and that I was born in the 1900's (while I mime like I am a dinosaur). But I was going to turn 40 whether I finally followed my dreams or not, so here I am doing it. Wisdom tells me that it’s never too late. For any of us.

Whatever your tweed is, I hope you're on your way to wearing it.