“Money is never wasted on education.”

I remember my grandmother saying to me in my 20s, in response to a concern I’d expressed: “money is never wasted on education.”

The curious thing is — though I can vividly recall her saying this more than 15 years ago… I don’t recall what she was referring to. Because this stuck in my head so profoundly, I’ve spent hours and hours over the years trying to remember the rest of the conversation. And I’ve slowly gained a sense, pieced together like a mystery, that she wasn’t referring to formal education.

As a kid, public elementary schools were all I ever attended and something my parents believed in deeply (and where they worked). But spending money on college? I’d never heard that debated by the people I grew up with.

From that and a few other details I can remember about the conversation — I’ve deducted that she was referring to traveling — the education one gets from travel.

I took a year off during college, in which I spent 6 months backpacking around Europe. The fact that I’d only ever gone to school up until that point in my life, and the high value education holds in my family… is perhaps what led to my concern. Was spending money on travel ok? Even though it was money I’d earned waitressing… it felt questionable. And I wondered.

My grandmother was clear. “Money is never wasted on education.”

Not formal education, not higher education. Just education. Period.

Where does one get an education?

If the biggest thing one takes away from an experience is an education — does that make the money spent worth it?

I moved to this place thinking it would be where I’d nest, plant roots, sew seeds. But alas… I am not a bird or a tree or a plant. For that, and many other reasons, this place would become something else.

After nearly 4 years, this place has proved to be, more than anything, an education. Four years. Typical.

That is not what I had wanted from this time and place. Nor what I expected to get. Learnings have come through discomfort, challenges, sadness, struggle. Must they always?

Yet when I worry that this time has been wasted, I remember my grandmother’s words. Money is never wasted on eduction.

And so here I am, in the fourth year, thinking about how this time of learning ends. In formal education, you take a test. You write a thesis. You have a ceremony.

What of this time? Must there be such an event to gain closure, for what I have learned to be integrated? What is the ceremony or action I should create?

It would make a good book… I kept thinking. So I pulled out the box of journals under my bed. But each time I look at them, I feel disappointed. Angry. Sad.

I need time and space away before I delve into writing about this time. I need to have moved on, before I feel ready to look back, though, under.

So I am left wondering about this final exam. This final paper. This graduation ceremony.

Would something like that help me feel better?

But what would it look like?

Welcome by Limando. Anibal, the singer/songwriter, is a good friend.