My Story

In middle school, if you asked me what I wanted my future career to be, I would have said that I wanted to be a therapist. I really enjoyed being the trusted person that people came to with their problems, to talk things out, vent, or use as a sounding board. It make me feel valued. Somewhere along the way, people talked me out of wanting to be a therapist, “Why would you want to sit and listen to people’s problems all day?” Looking back now, I’m mad at myself for allowing others to convince me that my dreams were not ‘good enough’ or ‘right for me.’

In college, I ended up studying abroad in Quito, Ecuador for a year, where I lived with a host family and attended all my classes with Ecuadorian students at a private university just outside of town. The many hours of struggling through conversations with my host mom for the first few months led to a much firmer grip of the Spanish language and gave me the opportunity to immerse myself in the culture and connect with the rich, local people.

After that experience I was passionate about study abroad and I pursed that career choice, which led to me getting a master’s in international policy studies. But ultimately, after a short foray into the field at San Francisco State University, I learned that talking to students about study abroad all day, without the time off to travel myself, was not going to work for me!

I ended up going back to school to get a teaching credential with a BCLAD, which meant I could teach subjects like math and social studies in Spanish. For almost 12 years, I worked as a dual immersion Spanish teacher. The thing I realized while teaching middle school, was the same thing I realized I enjoyed as a student in middle school—that I loved it when students would come talk to me and share their struggles with me. At this point, my life had come full circle and reminded me what I truly wanted to do. 

So, I went back to grad school, at the age of 44, and earned a master’s in social work. Now I’m finally living my dream as a therapist! All my previous experiences helped me to be an even better therapist than I would have been before, so I am thankful for the windy path that brought me to this point. It’s all just further proof that it’s never too late to pursue the life you want!