On the Other Side

Ahhh!!!!!!!!!! My excitement still is not ending...

I went outside to shovel yesterday morning and I ended up bumping into the mailman. He gave me a pile of envelopes and then he said, "There's something else." He reached inside his bag and took out a big brown roll. It said "University of Florida," so I knew it was my diploma. Along with that, I got my W-2 so I can get a tax return and the refund of my security deposit from my last apartment...

So all in all, I loved the mailman yesterday. He was the bearer of good news, unlike most days where he is the bearer of bills.

My diploma is bee-yoo-tee-ful.

It is everything I worked hard for in the past year and a half...

It means a whole lot more because of the challenges that I had to overcome in order to finish. I had four hospitalizations in the last two years of college and then five hospitalizations in my year and a half of graduate school. I suffer from severe mental illness, but that has not stopped me from achieving my dreams.

I knew I had a choice to make the last time I was released from the hospital. They wanted to put me in a state hospital and I said "no way. I am finishing what I started."

And I did....

Yesterday, I kept finding myself looking at my diploma again and again, just to make sure it was real. I can't even believe that I did it. I can and I can't. It's just so awesome that God helped me get through everything and that I came out on the other side.

I <3 life.