Thanks to GreenInOC’s suggestion, I have decided to ‘do something quietly’ for someone else for the month of February. I’m going to just allow that phrase to breathe and see where it takes me! Of course, I won’t be doing things THAT quietly as I’ve committed to blogging here daily about it, probably just a few sentences about what I did or attempted to do.

I’m going to just look outside myself and see where it takes me day to day. If you want to join, feel free to leave your experiences in the comments! I’ll take suggestions too.

February! A love month to begin with and now I’m just gonna add to it! A sort of daily Valentine.

It begins! With kind of a longer post than I had anticipated! But ah well, here goes.

I pay two monthly student loan payments from my undergraduate degree. (Only 13 years to go, guys! And then it’s gone! And I went to a state school so, man, can’t imagine how long a private school would take me to pay off…)

One loan is in my name and is taken directly out of my checking account and the other is in my parents’ name, as they co-signed that loan, and it is taken out of their account every month. I write them a check and mail it to them to pay them back for that payment. However, when I was unemployed last year, mailing them a monthly check fell further and further down on my list of priorities. In fact, it became something I didn’t budget for at all most months. When I had the extra money for it, I sent it to them. When I didn’t, I didn’t.

My parents never said a word about the missed payments of 2011 and I assure you that it isn’t because they are rolling around in rooms full of money and don’t care the slightest about $134. They do. And they probably felt it every month when that money came due and I didn’t pay them back.

I decided to sit down and figure out exactly what I was able to do last year and so I scanned through my bank statements online and calculated that I paid them for five months last year, leaving seven total payments unpaid.

I grabbed my checkbook.

I wrote seven checks in a row.

I put them in an envelope with a note that said to please cash one every week until there were no more left. I sent my dad an e-mail and thanked him for eating those payments last year for me, how much my unemployed self appreciated that act of kindness and generosity.

While I know that my parents would never ask me for back payments, that the thought never crosses their mind, I am now employed and able to repay. I am almost 29 years old and that is just way too old to be leaning on my parents for anything financial when I don’t have to be. My college education is something I value and something I don’t mind paying for every month. Of course, it would be nice if it was one less thing I had to pay but truth be told, the payments aren’t even that much.

I sat and thought quietly about college and what my experience meant to me.

About all the things I learned.

About all the growing up I did.

About the singing and the dancing and the monologues.

About friendships and romance and late night runs to Wegmans.

About how my parents borrowed a van and packed up boxes and dragged along my little brother and sister and drove eight hours away to Buffalo to help me move into a dorm, to help me settle in, to help me find my own ground, to help and encourage me to study something I loved passionately.

My parents, though they cried while they did it, happily guided me out of their home and into my own life.

I always have a very visceral reaction when parents make comments about saving so their kids can go to college.

My mother has many stories of friends and acquaintances of hers who almost literally bankrupted themselves trying to make college payments for their children, taking on extra jobs to send them to the perfect school. She marvels at this immense burden that parents feel to make college happen for their children. She understands the need, the want to give that to your kids but she was never able to make it happen for us. I think on some level, she feels like she let us down in that regard. On another level, I think she recognizes that she did what she could do and that my siblings and I all would figure it out. And this is what my mother understands intrinsically: that ultimately, it all gets figured out. It just does.

By being honest about the fact that they couldn’t afford to pay for college, my parents helped me grow up. They sat with me at the kitchen table and told me what they could do. We made a list of which schools I really wanted to go to and how much they cost. We talked about which ones had good theater programs. About the location. About the size. About whether I should have a back up plan or double major in something ‘safe’.

We figured out how much of a loan I would need to take out for each school. We weighed the pros and cons. When I realized it would cost me $10,000 more per YEAR to attend the private school I was DYING DYING DYING to go to, I chose the public school, with the smaller program, north instead of south.

It was the best decision I ever made.

I was able to make that decision because of the time they spent with me and the communication we shared and the honest way they told me Look, here’s what we can do, here’s what we can’t, also Welcome to Adulthood! This is what it’s like!

My parents couldn’t afford to pay for my college education.

They could, however, co-sign my student loans.

And because of that, I lived very happily for three and a half years of my life, immersed in creativity and joy and independence.

Paying them back for seven months of unpaid loan payments was one tiny way of saying once again, thank you.

Thank you for what you did for me.

Thank you for what you continue to do for me.

I put a stamp on the envelope full of seven checks and I dropped it in the mail and a tiny piece of me, far back in my chest righted itself. I hadn’t even noticed it was leaning too far to one side.

Until it wasn’t anymore.