“I was working as a school secretary. I’d just turned 40. My...

“I was working as a school secretary. I’d just turned 40. My kids were finally a bit older, so I decided it was time. College was unfinished business for me. I’d gotten pregnant when I was seventeen. My mother kicked me out of the house, and I was forced to drop out of school. My entire life I’d wanted to go back and check that box. At first I was just planning to get my undergrad degree, but halfway through I thought: ‘Wait a minute, I’m going to be a school counselor.’ My biggest motivation was all those years I’d spent as a young mother: trying to take care of three babies, while still growing up myself. My mother had disowned me. My marriage wasn’t the healthiest. There was nobody to talk to. Everyone in my life had either broken my trust, or left me without support. Imagine living your life until the age of thirty, alone and scared. Scared was the big one. I hadn’t really processed what had happened to me as a child. I just knew that I was scared of life. I got nervous whenever I was alone in a room with a man I didn’t know. And there was nobody to make me feel safe. And not having anyone to make you feel safe, is hard. I ended up becoming a counselor at the same school where I worked as a secretary. It’s been almost ten years now. I love helping kids manage their emotions. I love seeing their family dynamics work better. But most of all I love being someone they can trust. It makes you feel proud, when something about you makes a child comfortable enough to share their pain. Something about you makes them feel safe. It’s not an easy thing to obtain. But when there’s trust, there’s no barrier anymore, it just makes the air a lot easier to breathe in. The school feels more like an extended family now: students and parents seeking me out, emailing me, thanking me. The gratitude piece still kicks my butt sometimes. Because it’s easy to not feel deserving. Because of all the mistakes I’ve made. Because of what happened to me when I was young. But when a student turns around, 5 or 6 years later, and says: ‘My life is so much better because of you.’ It almost makes sense. It’s like: ‘It happened, Rosa. But look what you’re doing now.’”