How Did I Get Here?

Same as it ever was. No, wait. that's a Talking Heads song.

The first week's assignment is to respond to questions to help you focus on where you want to get by looking at how you got to where you are. Those who know me know that I was very driven. It took me ten years to get from high school to Master's degree, with only two at the beginning and two or three (It's not as clear as it once was!) full time semesters at the end. Working, commuting, and taking courses was a long haul, but I loved it and could tick off classes each semester, including the summer. I could see exactly what I needed to do to get to point B. One of my biggest fears was that I would die before earning my degree. Looking back, that seems a little short-sighted. But that tells you how important that degree was to me. I wanted to earn it or die trying. Could anything ever make me feel that way again?

Upon graduation, I was going to change the world in academic bibliographic instruction. I had the graduate assistantships, the references, the relationships with top notch academic librarians, and even the possibility of a part time academic position. I was on fire for BI. But that part-time possibility came after I had already accepted a full time public library position in a different part of the state.

Why a public library? I applied for a job in my mother's home town, walked into the library and said to myself, "This is why I decided to go to library school!" It shouldn't surprise me that what I first thought I was going isn't what happened. When I started college right out of high school, my plan was to go to community college and transfer to Fredonia for a degree in genetic engineering. So what happened to the plan?

In my quests for degree or credential, or employment, I have always experienced more than a bit of serendipity. The ad in the paper for a volunteer in the local school library, someone from my former home town of Petersburgh (population in the hundreds) in my classes at community college who guided me though the transition to Albany, the bookstore that opened in Albany just when I was looking to leave full time fast food management, the job in my mother's home town, the job as a Teen Services Librarian that became whatever I wanted it to be. I was afire with motivation. These opportunities kept me going.

And now I am an administrator. I will look back on this and realize there was a greater wisdom in this, just as I have with all things planned, but not planned.

Does this exercise help me feel more organized, more goal oriented, more focused? No. It reminds me that while I plan, God laughs. But planning is good. No planning, no degree. I just have to keep hearing the laughter to help me amend the plans. Right now, if God is listening and in human form, there are tear stained cheeks and an abdomen experience great pain from hearty laughter!