Work

So, the most difficult transition, it took me maybe most of my adult life was to—even though I tell you this whole story about how I grew up in a family which truly encouraged me to be myself and had no sort of set idea of what as a woman I was allowed to do, and I went to college in the same type of environment—it was to learn to trust myself. And to not always question whether I was good enough at what I was doing. It took most of my life to figure that out. So that was the biggest learning curve I had to go through. A transition to being a mother was not actually that easy. I mean it’s hard to go from not having a kid to having a kid who is there 24 hours a day and depends on you. So that was a transition but it was okay. The transition to being married was not big once we had decided that we were just done. We knew we were going to be married so…not to say we always got along, but the commitment was such that it didn’t matter if we were fighting. It was, that was it we knew we were going to be together for the long haul.

I love doing what I do because I get to meet with students and talk to them about what their career goals and college plans are—help them find the college that they’re going to be comfortable at and help them be able to afford it. You know talk them into different scenarios and help them along the way. It’s nice to see kids go and really kind of blossom in college. You know, the ones that the parents worry about, “He or she is too shy to do this” or not going to adjust well to living out of state or taking care of themselves and they come back in December and say, “I can’t believe what a different kid this is” [laughter]. So, that’s where I get my fulfillment.

Women, a lot of us deal with self-esteem issues just for a million reasons, and just gaining that confidence and who you are, what you are capable of doing. Know that you are capable of being anything you want to be. I mean that’s a message for everyone, but I think especially women. Because I think we get kind of pushed in certain directions. “Oh no, you need to stay home, and raise a family. Get married. Raise a family.” Or, “No you can only be a secretary.

To not listen to the old rhetoric of men saying you can’t do this and you can’t do that. You can do whatever you want to do and you can have a career and you can have kids and you can do it all.

Growing up I felt really limited actually in what we could do and in high school. Actually I wanted to take mechanical drawing and the school committee wouldn’t allow it. They said only boys take mechanical drawing, so they wouldn’t allow me to do that. So I went before the school committee and all and they would not allow me to take it. That was a boy’s—a man’s—or a boy’s course. And I really wanted to be a mechanical engineer. But all through my high school it was not accepted for a girl to do that. And I was really mad that I was a girl throughout my education cause boys had so many more opportunities. … Now, of course, I’m a realtor. And we own a lot of property and we manage a lot of property, so if I had it to do all over again, I would be either a plumber or an electrician. Absolutely. I love either one of these, especially electricity. That is fascinating to me…It takes time to know where your talents are and where your goals might be…but the Lord will guide you. If you know the Lord, the Lord will guide and direct you.

Literacy Volunteers trains adults in the community to work with other adults who don’t speak English or cannot read. And the partnership usually takes place over the course of a year or two years. We found that we couldn’t meet nearly the number of people who wanted tutors. When I first came on the job, there were maybe 50 people on the waiting list. Today we have over 300 people waiting for tutors, so we’ve offered classes to, sort of, “keep people in the loop” while they’re waiting for a tutor. We’re finding that the Albanian population and the…[pauses] we’re seeing a lot of Somalis and folks from Nepal and Ghana and Liberia, so there’s, I would say Africa is an area that many people come from. The majority of them have some [English], but not enough really to survive in the community. So therefore they stay in their own little group so that they can support each other and not have to speak outside their group.

The church is a community of people who are in relationship with Christ. And so I live my life with them and I think that gives me a lot of balance. It certainly gives me a lot of hope most of the time.

[My work] has allowed me to grow more professionally—I’ve learned to be an entrepreneur, I’ve learned that I have to work very hard… I can’t depend on anyone else for money or for support.  Anything that I want to generate has to come from within, but it’s also allowed me to have more creativity and a lot more freedom.

I was a single mom with two little kids, two little boys, and I knew that God had a plan for me that was better than where I was or what I was doing. I would see business women driving down the street while I was pushing along my babies in carriages and I would think, “Geez, I thought I was gonna be a business woman,” you know what I mean? And I would see, you know, people my age buying houses and I thought I was going to have a house and I thought I was gonna have a picket fence, you know and all that stuff [laughs]. And I always had faith in the fact that it would really happen.

I barrel race with the National Barrel Race Association. And I rodeo. Barrel racing is a clover leaf pattern, so you come around. You go through one barrel, another barrel, a third barrel and the back. You’re on a horse, and you’re going as fast as the horse can go and the tightest turns you can make, and you stay on. [Laughs] I’m actually state champion this year and won the state year end also for high points. So, I’m looking forward for this season. I’ve got three horses to ride so we’ll see.