The Day I've Been Waiting For
One chapter ends, another begins...
My degree FINALLY came in the mail yesterday. “By authority of the Board of Trustees and upon the recommendation of the faculty confers upon Dominique Renee Muse the degree of Bachelor of Applied Arts in Organizational Leadership”. It only took 14 years, 3 schools, a diabetic coma, and almost $80K in student loans for me to get here. Damn. $80K? Sheesh. But that can’t keep me down because I did it! I persevered, after failure and loss, challenge after challenge, I DID IT! By the end of a 60-day writing challenge I’m participating in, I hope to be better at describing how things make me feel. These words are not doing it justice at all, but I also feel like I’m still processing. This is monumental. It’s almost like graduation day all over again.
And it’s not about the piece of paper. I didn’t need a piece of paper to tell me that I am worthy. Though for a long time, I believed I did. The rest of the world will tell us that we need a credential from an institution to prove what we know. What we’ve learned through lived experience, through history, is not enough. Especially in this job market. The degree simply opens up doors that don’t open without it. I am grateful for the privilege to now be on the other side. The privilege of access and resources. I don’t take it lightly.
But my learning and education have not ended with the degree being awarded, though my participation in a formal program is paused for now (because Black women don’t stop at one degree, we collect them all like they’re infinity stones). I consider myself to be a lifelong learner. I love learning. I love reading something that shifts my perspective or deepens my understanding of something I thought I already knew. I’m constantly asking myself, “What was the lesson?”
So what was the lesson of my educational journey thus far? It only makes sense to pause and reflect in this moment. This moment of celebration that I want to savor for as long as I can. What is my takeaway? Honestly, there are many things that I could list. But what feels most prominent are two things.
1.) I am resilient. In those 14 years, I took pauses, but I never gave up. Even after losing my confidence in my intelligence and capabilities when I failed my first class EVER freshman year. Even after almost dying in a diabetic coma my second year. Even after academic probation. Even after withdrawing from my 4-year university and moving back home to start over at a community college. Even after more failed classes. Even when I wanted to quit more than anything, I kept going.
2.) Excellence is possible, it just requires strategy. Let me backtrack a little before I explain. This past April, at 32 years old, I was diagnosed with ADHD. In retrospect, it should have been obvious. The signs were always there. I have learned that it’s not uncommon for it to be missed in girls when they are children, so a lot of women are diagnosed later in life. But that’s a conversation for a different day. What I can say is that this diagnosis quieted the little voice in my head that was telling me that I just wasn’t good at school. No matter what the evidence said – I had been good, even great, at school before college. I graduated from high school with honors. And it wasn’t because I worked really hard. I was just good at learning.
That’s precisely why college was so hard. College takes more than just being smart and being able to learn. Much more. My diagnosis freed me from the “you’re just not trying hard enough” shame cycle I had been caught in for years. But there is still so much work to do. Transformation requires honesty. You can’t change something until you name it. Years and years of my negative and limiting self-beliefs plus working in a toxic, white supremacy culture organization had left me with some less than ideal coping strategies. One of which was telling myself “it doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be done”.
Now, I stand by that phrase for learning to counter perfectionist, avoidance tendencies. That mantra got me through my last few classes and assignments. But somewhere along the line, my mentality changed from rebelling against perfectionism (which was motivated by my rejection of white supremacy culture) to rejecting the idea that I have to put forth my best effort at all, for anything. Except the problem was that I was still telling myself that I was doing my best.
To be fair, in some ways, my capacity was truly limited. Again, the toxic job was…draining. Extremely draining, mentally and emotionally. It left me feeling depleted each day, so when it was time to do schoolwork, I was less than motivated. I had other mental health challenges I was navigating as well. I felt like trying at all was “doing my best”. Couple that with the time management, organization, and task initiation challenges of untreated ADHD and…yeah. My final grades are a reflection of my effort (and lack thereof). And in being honest with myself in this reflection, I know that when I really try, REALLy try, I am capable of doing better. AND I have also learned to give myself grace. I finished, that’s what matters.
I still don’t want or plan to hold myself to the unreasonable standard of perfection. But I know that when I give something my all, excellence is an achievable standard. Excellence for me means doing something well, as well as I am capable of, and being proud of what I accomplish. I still have mental health challenges to navigate, and I still have a lot to unlearn. But I also have additional tools and support now. I know that when I learn the strategies that work for me with managing my ADHD, it will make a huge difference.
There was also some grief around my diagnosis. I couldn’t help but question how things may have gone if I had known earlier, when I first started struggling with managing life and school. But there is no “what if?”, there’s only what is. I truly believe everything happens the way it’s supposed to. And now, with my degree in hand (or rather in folder), I can handle whatever comes next. I will be better as I move forward. But for now, I will celebrate this milestone. I will celebrate all versions of myself that got me here. And I will celebrate the lessons learned along the way.
Love and light always,
Domi
Note: This post was originally written for the Audacious Writer’s Circle 60-Day Challenge. It has been adapted slightly, but I apologize for any parts that seem repetitive from my previous blog posts.
Congratulations.