National Adult Literacy Database

December 17, 2012

Michelle with Coordinator Noreen at the Captain William Spry ALP

This week, the stories are written by students with the Halifax Community Learning Network. The story below was written by Michelle Byrne, from Halifax, Nova Scotia. Michelle works on her literacy skills with a tutor at the Captain William Spry Adult Learning Program.

Changing My Life

by Michelle Byrne

I have not done a lot of writing in my 20 years since I left high school, but recently discovered just how much I love and miss it. After receiving an email asking if I would be interested in writing about my experience, I was intrigued. I hope writing about my experience getting my GED helps someone else realize how important it is and just what wonderful people there are out there to help in the process. 

Since my son was born 11 years ago, I have spent my life working around him and being there as much as I could for him. I live in Halifax but have no real support system here, as all my family live in Newfoundland. I have myself, my son, and my husband and we do fine with the help of friends from time to time with childcare. I began a cleaning business so we could work around my sons school hours and days off, it gave me the flexibility I needed to be the Mom I wanted to be. Now he is 11 and I need to do more for him and me, as far as stability for my future and his.

At 18, I left high school needing 1 credit to complete a diploma. It was a very difficult year for me as my parents had split up and it was far from amicable. I felt torn for I had always had that stability of the family unit and now out of the blue it was gone. All that was left was arguing and a family torn. Because of this I moved on, on my own to live with friends and now the freedom, to not have that someone who loved me push me to be the best I could. I allowed myself to believe it didn’t matter but it did! Deep down it did, always in the back of my head I was sorry for walking away but never really had the guts to do anything about it. That would have meant I had to admit I failed! How could I do that?

At 39, I decided I needed to do something more…but what??? Anything that appealed to me at all I needed a GED or high school diploma for. So my deep down feeling was correct, I should have made it important! A close friend was doing her GED, upon helping her with some of the things she struggled with I realized: WOW I could do this! She completed hers and I decided I could do it too! Some wonderful friends pushed my thoughts on the subject and I made the call! I paid for my GED and had 3 weeks to prepare for a test people take 20 week courses for! Panic set in…I pulled myself together, got a book from the library, spoke with a wonderful woman, Noreen, who set me up with a tutor for my Math and decided ‘I can and I will’.

Working, running a home, being a Mom and also doing what I have always done for others learning how to say NO made studying pretty near impossible. I met with the math tutor, David on 3 nights and a friend who teaches high school English. It was absolutely life changing as they made me believe I still had the smarts I had in school, I just needed to freshen them up. I had forgotten just how much I loved to learn and had absolutely no idea the resources out there to help get this going.

I wrote my GED and passed the first write with scores I never thought I could accomplish. We all have the capabilities to do things; sometimes we just need that push and confidence from others to help us know what we are capable of. I have been lucky on my journey to have met wonderful, caring people. If you are even considering doing this to better yourself and your life…DO IT! It is the best thing I could have done for myself. I am so happy and thankful I did it, for now I have endless possibilities for a future.  I can be who I was meant to be.