I hadn’t planned to go to my commencement ceremony, hadn’t even rented a cap and gown. “Do we have to watch you ‘walk,’” my dad asked. I probably shrugged. It wasn’t important. Not in the way that mattered to our family.

Studying, learning—that was different.

In middle school, I once brought home a report card full of B’s. My parents offered to drive me to McDonald’s and Taco Bell to scope my job prospects. “That’s your future,” they said at the time.

The both share six college degrees, though I’ve never seen a diploma. Probably just another paper my dad tossed in the recycling bin. Education is such a critical, natural part of life, why be all showy about it?

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You ever notice how Facebook women of a certain age always seem to thank their men for keeping them sane? I know I’m probably guilty of it too. Without Mr. D, my brain would be… ugh. I shudder to think.

It all goes back to Enrique’s universal truth: “All men are dumb; all women are crazy.”

I’m admittedly as nuts as the next broad. Maybe more so. But I often feel like my crazy gets rebranded as pessimism when it suits Mr. D’s arguments or assumptions about me.

We had a spat about this a few months back. I can’t seem to remember what exactly we were fighting about, but I said that I’m too naturally happy to be negative. Mr. D said it’s possible to be a happy pessimist, that the two are not mutually exclusive.

I’ve been thinking about that ever since.

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This past Tuesday, two days before my eldest daughter turned six, I found myself screaming “Serenity Now” on the ride home from swim lessons.

Big A was being so mean to her little sister, so uncharacteristically bratty and whiny that when she finally said something about how Little A and another kid in her daycare ruined the dresses she had made for her stuffed animal kittens and then smacked her sister in the head, I responded the only way I knew how.

I yelled. “That is NO excuse for this nonsense,” I said. “KNOCK IT OFF RIGHT NOW!!!”

My angry mom voice works when it needs to. It shut her up for about 10 minutes. And then the screams returned. All evening it was something. One complaint after another.

“Ohmygod, Ohmygod,” I said to Mr. D before stepping outside to hit the bowl.

I came back to more fights. Unfinished dinners. Whines and tantrums and smacks and cries.

“Bedtime,” I ordered at 7:30.

The girls marched upstairs and screamed in bed. Obnoxiously. Incessantly. And it might have been the 35^th “MOM!” or the second bong hit, or some combination of the two, but about 15 minutes later, I realized that they were literally calling for me. That they needed me. That the only real job of any importance I have is to be there in these moments, the ones where they are at their brattiest, nastiest little selves.

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I was robbed of the role of the Wicked Witch of the West in 6^th grade. I can’t remember now whether I practiced hard for the part or just had a knack for the stage, but I was good. Damned good. Even 22 years later, ask me to say, “I’ll get you, my pretty, and your little dog, too,” and I’ve still got the magic.

I deserved that role. When I didn’t get it—when, in fact, it was handed to the 8^th-grade Abigail Fisher, whose tepid performance and passionless cackle served to mock my very existence—I saw then the cruelty of life’s injustices.

I came home that night and cried to my dad, who said there’s nothing wrong with playing the side character (he was a proud nobody in his school production of My Fair Lady), and somehow, someway, I got over it, eventually landing the role of a “100 Grand” chocolate bar in my 8^th-grade, Candy Land-based romp, where I played a trampy (but clearly high-end) New Yorker whose accent would later allow me to perfect Marisa Tomei monologues from My Cousin Vinny.

I guess that’s a really long way of saying… it all worked out! Exactly as it was supposed to! Even if it didn’t seem that way at the time.

I think the same can be said of my work woes.

I’ve already blogged about the things I’ve learned over this past year–and I wrote all that back when I still thought I was going to be denied the professional equivalent of the Wicked Witch: the raise.

After eight months of talking to the casting director about the role; after being offered it on three separate occasions, only to see it snatched away at the last-minute; after a really great second audition that had me waiting two months for an answer, after a lot of shit in between, I learned today that I got the part!

It feels amazing!!!! Grit and Grace won! Endurance paid off! Life lessons were learned!

To quote the former Hillary speechwriter, whose remarks would one day be plagiarized by Melania Trump, I have emerged from this experience knowing that “you work hard for what you want in life; that your word is your bond and you do what you say you’re going to do; that you treat people with dignity and respect, even if you don’t know them, and even if you don’t agree with them.”

Those are really good lessons to follow! I’m glad I did. I don’t think this particular story would have had a happy ending if I had not, and I am thrilled it does.

Grit and grace won! So did perseverance and tenacity! Hard work and talent! Integrity and kindness!

That’s the road to success. To happiness. To personal and professional growth. To boss bitch-dom.

On that note, #BossBitchesForHillary!