What a year!

There is still over a month left of 2020, but oh what a year it has been. There has been plenty of bad, but there has also been some good this year. My family has a lot to be thankful for this year.

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What color have you been spending most of your time in?

I wish I could say that I have been living in the green zone from the above chart, but to be honest, I think I hover between yellow and orange. We have been in semi-quarantine since March. But oh so much has happened since that last day in the office…which I am pretty sure was a Friday the 13th!

In March, we had my husband’s SSDI hearing via phone conference. Our lawyer thought we should wait and reschedule for June, but my husband didn’t want to put it off any longer. There were technical difficulties which did not make the start any easier. It was about thirty minutes and it didn’t seem like the judge had many questions other than my husband’s income for 2017. He had started a new job that year, so the six months that he did work were equal to the previous year of part-time work and it really confused the judge that my husband had not been back to work since June 2017. When we were done, we didn’t know what to think, but out lawyer had a good feeling. About three weeks later our lawyer called me to say that they were approving the disability date. Honestly, for these past couple of months, I have been in shock that that journey was now over. I still didn’t believe it until the first monthly payment in July and was still nervous until we finally got the three years of retroactive payments for the three years that my husband had been going through the process of applying for disability. It is a very odd feeling to finally be able to pay off bills without a worry.

The SSDI journey is not the only one that concluded this year. Last week, I defended my dissertation for my doctorate. It was a success! I am officially a doctor (but not that kind of doctor)! I have a doctorate in Educational Leadership & Management with a concentration in Creativity and Innovation. I know this blog has been pretty silent lately and part of that is because I have been burnt out trying to conclude that chapter of my life. I kept telling people I would be a doctor by Christmas, I just wasn’t expecting before thanksgiving.

So what is next? I asked my son that question and he said I should take a break. He said no more classes or book deadlines. My husband doesn’t think I will sit still though. He thinks I will go for another degree. My professor thinks I should turn the dissertation into a book. One of my committee members told me that it is not the time to be humble and that I should strive to put myself out there (If you remember, one of my previous posts was about imposter syndrome).