A Bitch Session: When your student loan payment could afford you a Lamborghini

I should have a PhD to show for all the years I spent in college. I need a PhD salary to pay for all of the years I spent in college.

I didn’t have plans to go to college. School never really interested me and I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I “grew up” so college wasn’t a priority. When I first decided to go to college I was working full-time plus a part-time job living in the suburbs of Minneapolis. I could barely afford to eat let alone pay for classes so I did what every student does who has never been told not to; I took out student loans. “What? You want to give me $10,000 even though my classes only cost $3,000?” Hell yes I will jump on that boat. Hell, I will buy that boat with my newly found $7,000.

Fast forward about 7 years and I move to Alaska where I start working a job that required a degree. A degree I never got because I dilly dallied around during my previous stint in college. I had a lot of credits that amounted to absolutely nothing; but debt, of course.  Although I worked at this job for years without a degree, and managed just fine, they required me to get one so away I went off to college again. You’d think as someone who is moderately intelligent I would know not to do the ol’ student loan thing again, but alas, I am not that smart apparently. My previous loans had been paid off (thanks dad), and here I was paying for classes with money I did not have. But wait, that’s not the only dumb thing I did you see. The University of Alaska, where I was attending, would only accept a fraction of my previously earned (and paid for) credits so I was having to re-take several classes again…and pay for them.. .again. Then one day someone told me about Alaska Pacific University’s “Degree Completion Program”. Basically I’d graduate in a fraction of the time and with all of my previous credits being well, credited.  Sounds good, right? WRONG! Not only were the classes online and absolutely horrible, I paid for it out the wazoo. I think we all know what part of the body the wazoo is, too. At the time it seemed worth it. What’s the difference of a few thousands, ahem, tens of thousands of dollars? Well, I can tell you- approximately 60 years of paying it back.

The reason I’m telling you this sob story is because student loans piss me off. There are two reasons it angers me so.

#1- Unless you are doing surgery on my brain or representing me in a murder trial, why the hell does anyone need a degree? I navigated life for a long time without one and did just fine. I held positions that required them, and dare I say did just as good of a job as someone with a degree. So what’s the diff? I would much prefer to hire someone with experience and good work ethic than someone who sat in a classroom for four years and has no knowledge of what the real working world is like. I can almost guarantee you that with enough training, I can do the same job as a person with a degree. This of course is with the exception of anything numerical (accounting, CFO, treasurer) because no amount of school, training or money will ever, ever, entice me to work with numbers. Ever..never, ever.

#2- Here people are, trying to better their lives with an education and essentially adding more to the economic growth of our country, yet we make it almost impossible to do so without adding significant, long-term debt to their lives. What sense does that make? We have a welfare program that basically enables and pays people not to work. Why wouldn’t they GIVE people money for school to get them into the workforce and become productive members of society?

Why should money or lack thereof, dissuade someone from getting an education? Why should one college cost more than another? Why should you have to pay more to go to a school outside of your state? Wouldn’t you think it would be a great experience for our young whipper snappers to move out of their homes, experience a new city and state, and people? But what 18 year old kid can do that without the help of student loans? Yes, I know they could get a job and yatta yatta, but they gotta eat, and live, and buy overly expensive books they will hardly ever use.  IT JUST DOESN’T MAKE SENSE TO ME!

Was it my choice to take out student loans? Of course. Was it my choice to go to a private college rather than a crummy local college? Of course. Was it my choice to get a degree in Human Services that basically limits me to doing non-profit, low-paying work the rest of my life? Of course. (I don’t really think it limits me but I’m trying to make a point here) But my actual point is that it is so damn expensive and it’s frustrating that we give people so many things; why not make education one of them? Life isn’t fair, I get that. Just remember that if I “disappear”, mark me as deceased ASAP because my student loans get cancelled and I can live a worry-free life in the South Pacific. I mean, six feet under.

Expectation is the Mother of all Frustration

I started this blog as a means for all you non-Alaskans to experience this amazing state through my eyes. I had good intentions of doing just that, and I did for a while, but recently the blog has become a drop zone for my thoughts and feelings and probably a bunch of gibberish nobody wants to read about. Que Sera Sera. So.. with my greatest of intentions in play, I am coming full circle with this blog.

If you ask my friends how many times they’ve heard me say I’m going to move out of Alaska they wouldn’t be able to give you a number. That is how often I think about and say I’m going to do it. Yet I don’t because I live in one of the most amazing places I’ve ever lived in and I just don’t think I can give it up quite yet. Let me explain….

I’ve become somewhat introspective in my old age (under 40 so maybe not THAT old) and I often think about the life I thought I would have and the life I have now and the differences between the two. I think about what could have been, what should have been, and what has been. I weigh pros and cons, ups and downs, lefts and rights and never myself (god knows that doesn’t need to happen). I dream of the what if’s, what hasn'ts, and what could be’s. I mourn missed opportunities and lost chances and get excited over all the possible things to come.

The thing I think I’ve been struggling with of late is the difference between being happy and being content. Am I happy? Yes. I am a happy person. Am I content? No. I don't think I am.

You see, my life was supposed to be so much more than this (in my mind). I was supposed to get married and have kids. I was supposed to own my own company. I was supposed to have a dog and cats and chickens and goats (ok the goats are a stretch but maybe?). I was supposed to go to book clubs with my best girlfriends and take my new neighbor homemade cookies. I was supposed to volunteer with the PTA and sew Halloween costumes for my kids. I was supposed to pass on traditions and make new ones. But you see, none of those things happened. All my “supposed to’s” were expectations and desires I put upon myself, and to be really content, I have to let them go because those ships have sailed. The wind is no longer beneath my wings or those sails. But let me tell you…. it is not an easy thing to do. Each year that passes another “supposed to” goes out the window and a wee little Beth dream gets crushed into smithereens.

Back to this blog coming full circle so those of you in the L48 (lower 48) can experience this state I live in.

Am I happy? Yes.

Why?

I wake up every single day and look out the mountains and think how beautiful this place is. I’ve made this little house my own and I literally can just sit here and contemplate all these things I’m spewing and be happy as a clam. I look around my house and the treasures I’ve accumulated through the years, each with a memory attached, and revel in the experiences I've had here. I have 20 animals (2 fur, 18 feathered) that rely on me and I on them. I have a community of people I’ve met through various experiences that I can call on at a moment’s notice for anything and everything. I get to share this place with friends and family that come up to enjoy all that is Alaska. Lastly, and most importantly, I have friends and family and friends that are family that mean more to me than just about anything. Friends come and go, they just do. But some stick with you through thick and thin (life experiences and weight…), some make you glorified aunties, some give you the title of Best Friend, some write you into their Book of Life, some help you build coops, allow you to cry on their shoulders, live with you while both in need of friendship, tell you like it is, listen to you tell them how you think it should be, give you a job when you need one, invite you over for every holiday and call you family and make you feel that way, and most importantly, they are there for you and you for them when need be. No judgements. No questions. I have those people here and those people are what keep me in Alaska. Yes I like my house. Yes I like my job. Yes I like how beautiful this place is. Yes I like all of those things…. But it’s the people that I’ve met here that keep me here and for that reason alone, I don’t think I will ever leave or can ever leave.

So maybe my “supposed to’s” just haven’t happened as I initially thought they would. Maybe I’m meant to meet someone later in life when I know who I am and am comfortable with me. Maybe I’m meant to live with my best girlfriends and sip cocktails on the lanai and argue over all the hotties at the Moose Lodge. Maybe I’m meant to be an auntie and not a mother. Maybe I’ve grown into this person that I am for me and not anyone else. Maybe this version of me isn’t the best yet but is the best that there’s been thus far and all those guys I’ve dated missed out (duh). Maybe when I think of failed relationships that I thought were going to go the distance, I should think of them as learning experiences for what I want and don't want from a life companion and not as failures. Maybe I'm supposed to be 38 years old and living where I am, surrounding myself with the people in my life, and experiencing the things I am experiencing. Maybe that is okay. No more apologies. No more settling. No more what if's, no more trying to fit square pegs into round holes.

Since I can’t know what my life will bring, I can only look back at what it’s brought and accept it and move on to what’s to come. I hope it’s going to be great because when it comes down to it, I’ve earned it. In my 38 years I've experienced things people should never experience and I hope they never do. But I've lived through it and with it and I'm a better person for it. So letting go of my expectations of what I thought my life should be shouldn't be too hard of a thing to do, right? One dream gone, another created. I mean really, what fun is it to know what life is going to bring anyway? It’s like opening all your Christmas presents beforehand… not that I ever did that…….

The countdown is on... or maybe it's the biological clock I hear...

You know how sometimes you stress/fret/ponder/question/analyze/wonder about things outside of your control? I rarely do that, and I am serious when I say that. Some past highly stressful life experiences have taught me that there’s no point in worrying because doing so rarely solves anything; things almost always work out in the end. Yet there’s this one teeny weenie thought that keeps popping in my head that causes me to pull a Rodin and really think about.

I hate math. I still use my fingers to count and anything outside of basic addition and subtraction causes my brain to violently hemorrhage. So when you add a disconcerting thought with a hatred of math, you’ve got a big ol’ conundrum on your hands… which I do, but not really.

Bear with me here...

You see, I’m at that age where numbers really factor into things. How many more years until I retire. The rapid rate at which my hair is turning gray. The amount I still owe in student loans. The number of childbearing years I have left in my life. Wait, what? Did I say that? Ok, hear me out.

I am 38 years old. THIRTY-EIGHT. At this point my eggs aren’t dried up, just slightly pickled.. but as a single, barren, thirty-eight year old, here is how my head works:

I’m a few months into my thirty-eighth year. So, let’s say I meet the man of my dreams sometime this year (snicker snicker). We date for a couple of years which will make me 40. We go on a vacation to somewhere warm where he proposes to me in an overly emotional way (for him, not me), I accept. We date for another year or so just to make sure he’s not a psycho (like my ex) and alas, I’m 42. We get married and take a year or two to honeymoon it. Now I’m pushing 44. FORTY-FOUR!! That is half of 88 (that was the extent of my math skills going on right there)!! Who wants to have a kid at 44?? Not me. Not to mention my eggs will be shriveled up and dead by then.

So let the math continue (shoot me now). So I have a kid at 44. That means I will potentially have a kid at my house until I am 62 years old. There is always the chance that I will kill the kid because I don’t have the patience that I used to (snicker snicker again. I have never been patient), so that could play into this whole thing as well.

When it comes down to it, let’s be real, I won’t find someone who can put up with me and there won’t be any immaculate conception going on here… so maybe I just do it by myself? Hard decisions call for a good ol’ pros and cons list:

Pros:

• I think I would make a stellar parent (with the exception of the patience-thing).
• I’d mold him/her to be a mini-me which in turn would be awesome.
• I’d have a built in sober driver.. that’s ok right?
• I have always wanted to say to my kid, “I will remember that!” like my mother used to say to me?
• I could blame him/her for me being chubby. “I just haven’t lost that baby weight yet!”
• I want someone to take care of me when I’m old? Which I would be soon after they were born… so…
• As a parent you get a whole day all about you: Mother's/Father's day. Hellooo presents!
• I could name he/she anything I wanted. Bocephus Klein has a nice ring to it.

Cons:

• He/She would take up my precious time and I have very little of it even now.
• I’d have to move out of my little house (or have a Flowers in the Attic type setup)…
• I’ve heard horror stories of child birth and the aftermath. Sounds painful and unpleasant.
• I like to sleep without interruptions.
• I would have to spend my money on things other than Coors Light. Deal.breaker.
• I would have to keep a job for more than a year.. psh..
• I’d have to befriend other moms… who will be half my age. No thanks.
• Tickets to get out of this state are expensive enough and having to buy another seat for a kid? Probs not.
• Do I really want to bring a child into this world? I don’t know see good ol’ fashioned values coming back into play anytime soon and this world has kind of gone to crapola.
• I think it’d be harder to find a date with a kid.. Oh, wait. I can’t find a date without one. Moot point.

Maybe I will just pretend to be faux-prego for a while and see how it feels. Let me start my checklist to prepare:

• Eat enough for two. ü
• Grow a baby bump. ü(although some may call it a beer belly) 
• Have constant mood swings. ü
• Pee all the time. ü
• Buy maternity pants. ü (thought I was buying super comfy pants..nope, maternity)

So what are y’alls thoughts on this? For those of you who don’t have kids, do you regret it? For those of you who do have kids, do you regret it? HA!