Nastia and College

Nastia and College sounds like an 'R' rated teen slasher film, but it is more of a pull at your heart strings, child lost story.
     If Money had permitted, I would of liked our girls to go away to college. Even if Money had Nastia didn't. As Someone who was and sometimes still are scared of everything, I can understand. I was never prepared to handle the unknown. It always seemed that if I risked my security, I'd lose everything. It never was worth it to try.
     My Daughter, that intrepid adventurer who left all she ever knew in Russia, came to a land where she barely knew us and didn't speak the language has found security with us and is afraid to risk it going away to college. The Great unknown is always scary, I know. I have also found the greatest reward in taking the risk. You inch a toe out into it and just keep going.
     Selling Muller Dairy was about the biggest risk I everdid too. From a distance of eighteen years, it doesn't seem as great as it was back then. Back then, Muller Dairy was everything I knew and everything I was. When I was born, my Dad delivered milk. I remember waiting a Christmas morning on my parents bed for my father to come back home. He'd gone out extra early to deliver milk to his customers, as We waited on their bed.  I remember my dad asking Karl and I who would go to work with him on the truck. Karl would say he'd go, then I said I wanted to go also. Then Karl said, he'd stay home, then I said I didn't want to go. It went back and forth like that for a while. I wanted to go to work with Karl and my dad. I must of been five,six. I remember my Mom getting sick, I don't remember what it was, maybe colitis, maybe something else. All I remember is Karl and I delivering milk together with my Dad.
    I remember waking up on a Saturday morning, it was summer and I'd slept out with Mike in the tent. My Mom calling me to get me up to go to work with my dad, me not wanting to. What I now wouldn't give.
    Nastia has been reduced to tears a couple of times because of College. There came a point recently that Teri and I questioned if she was adult enough to go to College.We talked to her and asked her straight out if she understood what was going on and if she would rather not go to College. I was willing to let her take a year off,a scary thought and let her work for a living, pay bills and grow up some more. I was scared if she said yes she might never go to college. She admitted to being scared and not really understanding what was going on. Tears streamed down her face. I tried to comfort her, but this was a spot that her mother it seemed could only fill.
      After She calmed down, We talked more and things, I hoped, had gotten clearer. I think the big break through was when David and her went up to RCC to register and they walked around the campus. He had just finished going there and knew the place pretty well. My knowledge was forty years out of date. When I went there, food was limited to a vending machine and a microwave. Now there is a cafeteria. Wow!
      She is registered for school, taking fifteen classes, English,Math, Human Sexuality ( yeah I know, I have to remind myself still she is going to be twenty soon), dance and one other class. She starts at eight a couple of days a week and a little later the other days. She goes five days a week.
     I remember one of my favorite things about RCC was when I could set my classes up to go only Monday through Thursday and have Friday off. Three day weekends for four months!!



















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