Being Married to a Student

When Taylor and I first met, he was one semester away from graduating with his BSN and I had just graduated from Mississippi State and was taking the semester off before starting grad school.

Every since I've known Tater, his dream has been to be a CRNA.
Our entire life together has been leading up to him becoming one. We have been working on this together for years. And I say we because I'm the one working two pay jobs, paying the bills, washing his clothes, and making his lunches...so yeah, it's been a group effort - thank God I don't have to attend class!

When people ask me what my husband does, and I happily say "he's unemployed at the moment, focusing on school to receive his DNP (Doctor of Nursing Practice) and become a CRNA (Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist"), I'm normally met with, " You guys will be rolling in it someday.” Which always prompts an unnecessary conversation where I overexplain our current debt situation and how we probably won’t have any sort of money until we’re in our mid forties. More importantly, anyone in medical school (or any grad school) knows that if you’re doing it for the money, you’ll never make it. The energy-spent to dollars-made ratio just isn’t worth it.

What most people do not realize is the expense to attend school. The entire process is daunting:  applications, application fees, moving, moving again, interviews, more interviews, waiting, more waiting, rejections, not buying a house, not having money, not having freedom, moving again, away from our friends, going further into debt, and renting for the next decade. Hi, I'm 30 and have yet to purchase a home and still drive a 1998 model car. Sacrifice, folks, sacrifice.

Our life is definitely not bad, it's just different from how it was before Tater started school. Instead of him working 36 hours a week, it’s as soon as he can wake up until he’s too tired to study anymore; which normally involves him going to bed way past midnight and rising about 5:00; not to mention all the hours he has to put in at pretty much EVERY hospital in the Memphis area. Instead of TGIF! it’s “How much can I expect to see you this weekend?”Which is not much. We live in the same house and see each other only sporadically, due to both of our demanding schedules.
**Though last week, we both were free on Sunday and watched the entire season of Penny Dreadful.

Being married to a student means sacrifice. It means waiting. It means patience and understanding when they need to leave a party early to study. It means not freaking out when the bank account reaches absolute zero or when they forget to plan something for your anniversary because it’s test week. It means putting everything on hold. Everything. It means seeing that new couch and desperately needing it, but not wanting to drop the money on it or have to move it because you know in less than a year, you'll be moving, yet again. It means living on student loans and my measly salary and not buying that dress at Target. It means a lot of time alone.

To Taylor's credit, I knew all of this going in to our relationship. I just didn't expect it to be this hard or this long. When he first started school, we always said, "May 2015, it's not that far away." Finally, in July 2014, I can honestly say that May 2015 isn't too far away at all. There's a light at the end of the tunnel, a very small light, but a light nonetheless! 

With all of these challenges and facing the unknown, it also gives us an opportunity. An opportunity that most people will never have to deal with. Where to live?

Since he's less than a year from graduation (praise the Lord),it's time for us to start looking at employment opportunities and the benefits offered. We have been tossing around the idea of moving back to the Delta or going on an even bigger adventure and packing up and moving out west.

After talking to several CRNA's and reading more and more about student loans and the cost of living in some areas, we are seriously debating on moving back home. The reasons are too many count. All of our family and most of our friends are there; and we would love to be near everyone again. Another perk is the cost of living. In our current 3bed/2bath 1970s ranch, we pay $1,100 a month for rent, while our first home in the Delta was eerily similar and only cost $500. I am not the best at math, but that's a good deal! And one of the biggest perks is this...after much research and talking to the student loan company, the Ms Delta is considered an under served area, and the federal government would pay a HUGE percentage of his loans if he were to work there. Before anybody gets their panties in a wad, consider this...his loans by graduation will total approximately $200,000. We have both been paying on our undergraduate loans, but the monthly payment on a loan as large as that would be about $4,000; not a number easily managed.

Our main goal after graduation isn't money or his salary, our main goal is paying off the loans; so that we can eventually start buying that cute dress from Target (for me of course!) and looking at vehicles made in the current decade and maybe even buying a home or becoming parents.

Being married to a student means sucking it up and realizing a lot of people are married to other people with hard jobs. We all have our cross to bear, right? It also means sacrificing family and friends and time. But it will all be worth it in the end, right?