QUESTIONS
“I just want people to know that it’s okay to question your beliefs, and if what you believe is true, then it will still be true when you’re done with your questioning. And if what you believe is not true, then you’ve just learned something really valuable and beautiful about yourself.”
Stability
I have two gorgeous little daughters, and I’m pretty much a single mom…I have a degree in technical theatre from the University of Montana, but I kind of wanted to get out of that and find a career that would be a little more stable for raising two young daughters…so I came to Helena College to get my nursing degree.
BACK TO SCHOOL
“When I got accepted into pharmacy school, and I told her [my daughter], the first thing she said was, ‘I’m so proud of you, Mom,’ and so that’s all I needed to hear because the whole reason I’m doing it is so I can pay for her to go to college and to do things that I didn’t get to do.”
INSPIRATION
"I was kind of a broken kid at the time, so I wasn’t talkative at all. I was really quiet and to myself and my uncle knew that, but he brought me back here. My aunt and my little cousins were excited to see me with my broken tooth and big black eye.... But I was getting better. They were bringing me back to church, and I was realizing what Jesus had done for me—saved me off the streets, sent my aunt and uncle for me, and I regained that relationship with Him.”
NONTRADITIONAL
“I’m not the cookie-cutter life. I became a mom at age 18, and so from that point on, I had to grow up really fast and just figure myself out. So doing mom, and then work, and then school, and then after school, it’s marriage—so it’s all these things not in the cookie-cutter fashion, but to me it makes sense.”
JOY
“It was a beautiful time in my life because I had no money, but that never bothered me, and looking back on it, I question why that never bother me—being 19, living at my dad’s with a person who also had no money, and that never mattered. All that mattered was that beautiful baby and how much joy she brought to my life.”
JUDGMENT
“My learning disabilities and my stress disorders—those have probably been the hardest, especially growing up. Being told by my family that I was stupid. Being told by some teachers that I was stupid. That was the hardest. It still affects me. I lack confidence in myself because of all those years I was told I was stupid.”
TRY
“I’ve never actually sat down and said, you know, I want to do something that’s going to better the world, but, you know, I’ve got to try it out.”
BREAKING CYCLES
“You’re never too old to learn. Because I’m now 52, and I started this when I was 48. I’m grandmother of eight…and in me going to college now, I’m showing my grandchildren that, yes, college is important.”.
RESET
“One day, I was sitting at my computer desk, and I was like, ‘I’m really sick of being depressed,’ and that was that—like cold turkey, a complete 180.”
NOT THE AVERAGE
“I wish I would’ve known how much I was going to grow and learn.”
COMING BACK
“If you have a story, and you’re able to explain it and show that you’ve done something, then your grades—I mean they matter, but they don’t.”
SURVIVING
“I’m a survivor. I’m that. I mean, I’ve been through a lot. I celebrate my 40th birthday at the end of the month. It’s amazing. Here I am, raising four kids on my own and going to school and working and taking care of my grandma. I have a lot of people say: how do you do it? I don’t know, I just do it. There’s no option. It just has to be done.”
Finding Home
“I spent the next year and a half attending school and living in a tent. I studied marine science—of course that’s what you study when you go to school in Hawaii.”