They Almost Stopped Me. Almost.

They Almost Stopped Me. Almost.

Life Outside the Pages

I graduated.

Associate of Science, Business Administration. High Honors. And I need to tell you what it actually took to get there — because the pretty version doesn't do it justice.

I should have graduated in December of 2025. Instead, someone enrolled me in a program called TDP after I had explicitly opted out. That one administrative mistake wiped out my financial aid — loans, grants, scholarships, all of it — gone. It took months of fighting to get it fixed. Months of being frozen out of my own education through no fault of my own.

So I waited. And while I waited I wrote books. I built a business. I made art. I survived a stroke in January of 2026 and started writing a memoir thirty days later. I took one term off — just one — and then went right back to finish my last two classes.

High Honors.

I want to be honest with you about something. None of that was easy. My right hand locks up. My speech gets garbled when I'm tired or in pain. I have thalamic pain syndrome and on the bad days nothing touches it — I just grit my teeth and keep moving. There were days I had no business sitting at a keyboard. I sat there anyway.

Here's what I know to be true: you are the only one who can get in your own way.

Not the system, even when the system is broken. Not the diagnosis. Not the bad days. Not the administrative mistake that cost you a year. Those things can slow you down — and they will — but they cannot stop you unless you let them. Sometimes you have to divert. Find a different path. Take a breath, pull up your big girl panties, and keep going.

I have a deep relationship with God. I trust Him with my life, completely. People want to blame God when things go wrong or don't go their way — I understand that impulse. But I've learned something. When a door closes, when something keeps blocking a specific direction, I pray. I keep my mind and my heart open. There is always a reason. Always. You may not see it right away. I rarely do. But it's there.

The next chapter starts now. I'm beginning my Bachelor's degree in Nonprofit Management and Grant Writing — because as a disabled person, self-sufficiency isn't a luxury. It's survival. And I intend to build something that lasts.

To anyone out there sitting in the middle of their own detour right now — the path isn't gone. It just looks different than you planned. Keep going.

What's the thing you almost gave up on — but didn't? I'd love to hear it. Irish@irish-rivers.com