Today an important little package showed up on my doorstep. The minute my sister put the thick priority mail envelope in my hand I knew what it was.

My degree.

For the past seven years I have been struggling through college. I've failed out of one college and have attended three other colleges part time, and I finally earned enough credit to get an associates degree. I've known that I was getting my degree for two months, I finished the required credits in the middle of May. But to have it in my hand was a feeling like none other. It came in a binder, with the seal of Regents College on the front. I held it for quite a while after taking it out of the envelope.

It was my newborn that I wasn't quite ready to share with any one else yet.

But I eventually slid it back into the envelope, and stowed it in my room, carefully analyzing each space for safety. I wouldn't want a drink to spill on it, or heat from a TV or other appliance to damage it. (Yes, I am acting like an overprotective new mother.) I will get a frame for it, hang it on my wall above my computer. But for now it's enough that I have it. I did it, my accomplishment. I've been striving torwards this for years and it arrived in an unassuming envelope, with out ceremony. And I wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

Because it is not my destination, merely a mile marker on the journey.

So I move on, knowing I am that much closer to my bachelors degree, and whatever else I choose. All my life I've let my dreams guide me. And this just tells me that I'm on the right track, I can see what lies ahead.

Can't hardly wait.