Underachiever

My private high school alma mater periodically sends a glossy magazine crowing about academic and sports awards of their current and past graduates. They include a list of marriages, births, and deaths, and awards to alumni who exemplify the ideals of the organization. As the years go on, I’ve noticed that my graduation year has, for the most part, ceased to be mentioned in the marriages and births, and is more likely to have an alumni mentioned as newly-made grandparents, obituaries, and awards recipients for lifetime achievements.

Thankfully, I’ve not made it into the first two categories yet. Neither have I made it into the latter, which is leaving me feeling a little deflated. I am at the age when women who have been achievers have started being awarded “Woman of the Year” type awards. You know what I’m talking about. While I’m at home wiping butts, emptying containers from the ‘frig that look like a science experiment gone bad, and scrubbing toilets, she’s out saving the world.

Case in point: this year’s recipient grew up within walking distance of my house. Like me, she has a Chemical Engineering degree and worked for a bit after getting married and before kids. She quit to adopt SIX special needs kids, whom she home schooled (she, of course, was running the homeschool organization for eight years) until they were mainstreamed. She has, amongst other things, taught Sunday school, Baptismal classes, organized committees at church, visited the homebound, worked with teens on Right to Life (taking them to Washington, D.C.), worked at a pregnancy center and on a hotline, speaks at churches and is President of her local Right to Life organization. And in addition, she got a full scholarship to get her masters’ in physics, graduated with honors, ya know. Now, she is a research assistant at a university and has taught high school physical science, geology, and chemistry.

Well, I’m going to slink back to making beds and fixing the break in the septic tank line later today (using my Chemical Engineer’s knowledge of pipes and all). I did get an “I love you” from my fifteen year old the other day, and that, from what I hear from other moms of teenagers, is worth all the “Woman of the Year” awards that exist.