Seated on the examination table at my doctor’s office, I was trying to do the math in my head. 

If my daughter was 7 or 8 when my new physician’s assistant spent summers as my mother’s helper, how old was she at the time? 

Thirteen? Fourteen? 

Yes, you read that right. 

This past week my yearly physical was completed by a physician’s assistant who — just yesterday, I swear — was painting rocks in my backyard with my daughter while I worked a few rooms away. 

Aside from my furious calculations, there was plenty more going through my brain as I waited for the door to open. 

There was, of course, the now familiar sensation that I’d suddenly gotten quite old overnight. How could the 2-year-old I’d once taken photos of for this very paper, the teen whose high school graduation photo still hangs on my fridge, be a college graduate already? Surely the math was off.  

There was pride too — pride in a local kid who I’ve been able to watch grow up, blossom and excel, finding her place in this grown-up world. 

Finally there was a sense of relief. 

I’ve mentioned more than a few times in this column that I worry for the future of our county with limited professional job opportunities and a national trend of rural “brain drain.” I’m not crying wolf either. 

The percentage of Americans with bachelor’s degrees has risen in the last few decades — from 2011 Census data to 2021 data, the number jumped from 30.4 percent to 37.9 percent. Meanwhile the percent of people with a bachelor’s lags far behind at just 22 percent. 

Degrees aren’t everything, surely, and there’s immense value in trade schools or alternative paths. I believe strongly in supporting those options, and I’m not here to undervalue those who do not have a degree. 

But I am here to talk about this one particular path, which heads directly OUT of Sullivan County. 

The numbers tell us we are losing the kids who pursue higher education. Most of them do not come back. 

We’re putting so much into them, and we’re not getting it back. 

So when it happens, it’s cause to celebrate. 

Yes, I felt (more than a bit) old this past week. 

But I also felt so much pride in a county kid who has grown up, worked hard and come back to provide our county with a much-needed service. 

And I felt relief that she’d chosen us. 

Now we just have to figure out how to get her peers to join her.