The Ceiling Was Never the Whole Building

Nobody warns you that becoming a student again, at this age, with this many responsibilities, feels less like a fresh start and more like showing up to your own surprise party wearing the wrong outfit. I said yes anyway. Because apparently I enjoy suffering, but make it academic.

Financial aid approved. Orientation module completed. One very official acceptance email sitting in my inbox like a threat and a gift at the same time. Very on brand for my life.

Let me start from the beginning, because the beginning matters, and also because I need you to fully appreciate how long this took me to figure out.

One Door. The Whole Building.

I started as a CNA. And for a while, I genuinely thought that was it. The ceiling. The whole building. Not because anyone told me so, but because I was very good at looking at one door and deciding it was the only door in existence. Charming quality. Very helpful. Would not recommend.

I worked those shifts. I carried other people’s hardest days in my hands and clocked out still standing, which, if you have ever worked a CNA shift, you know is a genuine athletic achievement. That was not nothing. That was, actually, everything. I just did not know yet that everything was also a starting point.

But then came the promotions. Then came the certifications. One led to the next the way these things do when you stop assuming the ceiling is load bearing. Medication classes. Then someone, somewhere, had the audacity to suggest I could also become a medical assistant. And I, a person who had been acting like CNA was the final boss, said sure, why not, as if I had been planning this all along.

Somewhere inside that program, tucked between the coursework, the paperwork, and whatever I was pretending to understand on any given Tuesday, I found the thing that actually fit. Medical records. Health information. The part of healthcare that lives in files and codes and documentation, the paper trail behind every diagnosis, every decision, every patient who needed someone to keep their story straight. Reader, I had found my thing.

I got the certification. I threw myself a little internal parade. I thought that was the finish line.

Because then I talked to enough people who had gone further, and I learned there was a degree on the other side of that finish line, standing there, waving, completely unbothered by how tired I already was. So in 2023, full of ambition and absolutely no idea what I was about to walk into, I decided to go for it.

The University of Phoenix Incident

I sent my letters. I filled out my applications. Then every single university in North America apparently received a memo that said “Nathalie is available” and acted accordingly. My phone did not stop. Emails I had not opened. Portals I had allegedly created accounts for in my sleep. It was administratively unhinged.

And then. There was the University of Phoenix.

Eighty. Thousand. Dollars.

I felt my soul leave my body. I watched it drag itself slowly out through the screen of my laptop and hover somewhere above my head, looking down at me with what I can only describe as profound disappointment. At that price, a myocardial infarction almost felt like the cheaper option. I recovered. I did not enroll. The University of Phoenix survived.

Then life did what life does when you are busy making enrollment decisions you do not remember making. It moved. A new job appeared. A completely different world, the law field, malpractice firms and records rooms and a vocabulary I did not have yet but acquired faster than I expected, because it turned out my whole instinct, understanding how information moves and where it lives and what it costs when it goes wrong, translated perfectly into a courtroom context. I learned things. Important things. Things that, in retrospect, were quietly preparing me for exactly what I am doing now.

But the degree stayed where I had left it. Patient. Unbothered. Waiting like a very organized ex who knew you would come back eventually.

Two years passed.

CARTI, A Badge, and September First

Now I work at CARTI as a Health Information Management Technician, which is a title I say with my whole chest because it took the scenic route to get here. I wear my badge. I learn the building. I figure out which hallways connect to which other hallways, which is a different kind of orientation than the one I completed online, but equally necessary and significantly more cardio.

And I am also, now, almost officially a student. September 1st. It is on the calendar. It is happening whether my nervous system is ready or not.

New Job, New Rules

Nobody tells you that adding “student” to your life does not mean anything else leaves to make room. There will be no pause button. I will not stop being a HIM Tech clocking in at a new job with a new team and a morning routine that still feels slightly borrowed. I will not stop being the person who comes home to Joe and to Savannah and Horatio, two dogs who operate on a snack schedule more rigid and non-negotiable than anything I have encountered in any professional setting. I will not stop being a wife to a manuscript that will not finish itself no matter how many times I ask nicely, and several ongoing series because moderation is simply not available in my size.

I will add “student” to the pile. I will call it growth. I will make very strong coffee. I will keep going.

I researched two schools. I made a pro and con list like it was a courtroom exhibit, which is either a sign of excellent decision making or a personality trait I accidentally absorbed from the malpractice office. Possibly both. I landed on Western Governors University, and I will tell you exactly why. Every single class is fully online, designed specifically for people who work full time and still have the audacity to want a degree. Nobody expects you to pause your life. They built the program around the fact that you will not. That sold it for me faster than any enrollment advisor could have.

I hesitated for a full week before hitting submit, and not because I doubted the material. I have read enough charts and sat through enough certifications to know I will learn whatever is put in front of me. I hesitated because starting over, even the small, contained, degree-shaped variety, has a way of dragging up every version of yourself that almost did not make it.

The CNA who thought one door was the whole building. The woman who nearly signed her life away to the University of Phoenix without noticing. The version of me who stood in front of a ceiling and treated it like a sky.

She is here too. She is enrolled. She is slightly unhinged and extremely proud, which, honestly, is the most accurate description of me at any given moment.

Financial aid approved. Orientation completed. One acceptance email sitting in my inbox like a dare.

I said yes.

Again.

Still.

Joe approved weeks ago. Savannah and Horatio approved the moment they realized being a student does not affect snack time. The manuscript remains unavailable for comment.

Classes start soon. My coffee maker has been promoted to essential staff.

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