My whole life has been rather unconventional, but nothing compares to the roundabout path I've taken in getting a college degree--and the journey continues today!

Let me back up a bit. When I graduated high school, I felt like many other eighteen-year-olds. I felt pressured by my family to be the best me that they thought I could be. So when I was accepted to a prestigious liberal arts college, I readily accepted even though I wasn't sure that it was the right fit for me, and even though it cost more in tuition than I will probably ever make in one year, and even though college terrified me and I wasn't sure I wanted a college education in the first place.

Lucky (or unlucky) for me, I only spent two and a half weeks at that college because I fell very sick with infectious mononucleosis, or mono for short. Known to many as the kissing disease, mono is very communicable and is often passed from person to person without making many of them sick. I won the viral lottery in that I became so sick that my parents took me back to their home and I barely got out of bed for two months. The fatigue that came along with being sick lasted for another year.

I was much too ill to work, but I still felt that my family expected me to be in college, so I applied for entry in an online undergraduate program. When I signed up for online classes, I picked a major and took only major specific classes. I soon learned my mistake. The major was not the right fit, and I quickly burnt out. I received more than one failing grade before I realized that I needed to make a change. By this time, I had finally accepted that I didn't have any clue where I wanted my life to go, so I stopped taking classes entirely. I was unsure of what path to take next, and I simply let my life unfold in front of me.

In the next two years, I worked my tail off, first in retail and then as a kennel worker at a vet's office. In the middle of it all, I dated the man who would later become my husband. Together we moved across the country, and together we struggled for an entire year as we lived away from family, without a car, and without any idea what we were doing. We were still together when we moved back home.

Eventually I finally found the right fit--the college I'd been waiting for. Everything about it made me feel at home, and as a bonus, they had several programs I was interested in. I could make up my mind about what college I wanted to attend, but I didn't have to figure out what I was going to do with the rest of my life. The advisors paid attention to my needs, and my fellow students were nothing short of amazing. I was ready to start the fall semester as a faux-freshman.

Then something happened that has turned my whole life around. I found out that I was pregnant with my first child. The pregnancy was planned, but I never could have prepared for the way it would flip my whole world into a new dimension.

Being pregnant was physically demanding, and I even had to go on bed rest while I finished up my first semester at my dream school. By the time final exams rolled around, I had a brand new baby. My sweet son was born a month before the end of the semester, and very nearly a month early. I had such good luck that he was born the picture of health, and he even accompanied me to all of my finals.

The strangest thing is that at the end of all this uncertainty, he changed me enough that I know exactly what I want. There's no question in mind now that I want to be a stay-at-home mom. It's my biggest goal. He is the new most important thing in my life.

So if you're struggling with uncertainty, if you have no idea what you should major in, if you aren't sure the college you attend is the place you need to be, if you feel like you're in dead-end relationships and you can't even begin to picture your life ten years from now, I want you to know this: One day the pieces of your life will fall into place. You can't force them. You can't even anticipate how the picture will look. But it will happen, and you will finally be at peace.

You may face years of anxiety, depression, health problems, financial problems, family problems.... You may feel like they will never end. But they will. Keep working your butt off, keep diving into the unknown. The unknown will become known, and you will find the meaning you are looking for. I promise.