Mostly Brave

“Life is tough, my darling, but so are you.”- Stephanie Bennett- Henry

When I was growing up, my grades suffered all through school and my parents took me to different doctors to see what the issue with my learning was. In the 1980s you heard more about kids with dyslexia than any other learning disability. So, no good solution came to pass for me. My Dad died five weeks before my freshman year of high school, so further research on possibilities of what was wrong with me moved to the backburner. You can guess how well I did in my schooling after that. I barely skated by in my studies. 

It was my senior year of high school and all my friends were applying to colleges or planning what their next career move would be. I really didn’t know what I was going to do and pretty much stayed quiet around my peers about the whole thing. One Friday, I was called into my high school guidance counselor’s office. Maybe she would be able to give me some good suggestions, I thought, but instead she told me that I shouldn’t plan to do too much with my life. You know what happens when an educated adult tells a kid who struggles with their education not to plan to do too much with their life? They believe them.

The thing is, when you barely get by in school, when you can’t hold down a job because you forget things, or when you can’t have a conversation without your mind going all over the place, you start to think maybe your high school guidance counselor was right; just getting through a day was a real struggle for me.

Years after I had graduated I worked in an administrative job and there was a psychiatrist that volunteered where I worked at the time. I told him about my struggles with school and how I had felt like a stupid girl my whole life. The doctor put me on medication for ADHD and after that, my life changed forever. I was 39 years old.

I enrolled at our local community college and then, after taking as many general education classes as I could, I transferred to Capital University where I graduated with honors in Social Sciences. My married name is Bailey, but my family name is LeVan, and when I went onto the stage to receive my diploma, I had them call out Lisa. LeVan. Bailey. Summa Cum Laude. 

It was important for the kid in me to know she could set out to conquer whatever she wanted to conquer. I love Denis Waitley’s quote, “It’s not who you are that holds you back, it’s who you think you are not.” This would be my line of thinking going forward in my life. Graduating from college was my golden ticket to believing I’m not a stupid girl after all.