My mom was one of the first 50 women to join the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Passing the rigorous physical, academic and psychological ordeals wasn't easy, but it was nothing compared to the struggles she faced earning the respect of her big, bad gun-toting fellow agents. To them, she was the "chick agent" and when Miss Congeniality came out, her co-workers had a field day -- posters were photoshopped and hung all over Philadelphia's Federal Building.

A couple years after entering the FBI, she had me -- and then my sister Maura and my brother Brendan. She and my dad have always worked full-time, so my brother and my sister and I spent our days with babysitters and summer camp counselors.

Yet, they were always just a phone call anyway. We had dinner together every night. She coached my championship grade-school volleyball team. She finished her hour-long daily commute only to get back in the car and chauffeur us to various practices, meetings and friends' houses. She read every paper. She helped with every school project.

On top of her career and her needy family, she remained best friends with the girls from West Oak Lane and McDevitt High School that she grew up with.

With supreme skill, she balanced and prioritized all the elements that made up her charmed life. Superwomen like her, I was convinced, don't know the meaning of regret.

But once I grew up and began juggling my own commitments, she confided in me that with so many good things in her life, she always felt like everything got short-changed. There weren't enough hours in the day to spend with her kids, to dedicate to her investigations at work, to catch up with her six brothers and sisters, to see her friends. In wanting everything, she got nothing.

I never understood what this meant until I came to college. Here, I too refused to choose. I wanted to spend 40 hours a week at The Daily Collegian; I wanted a life with my best friends; I wanted a real education, not just a degree.

So here I am, four years later, on my last day as editor in chief, living in a house with nine friends that have stuck by me not just on Friday nights, but Monday mornings, and I've finally finished with my 118-page senior thesis.

Now I understand my mom's words that night. Wanting it all, you can't get enough of anything. I've written papers that could have been better; I've missed birthdays and holidays; I've left the Collegian exhausted when I knew I should stay. For four years, I have been plagued by the suspicion that I spread myself too thin, that my desperate need to be so well-rounded left everything one-sided.

You may ask: Was it worth it? Was this worth all the memories I missed with my friends; the news coverage I wished I had more time to plan and edit, the lackluster test grades that would have benefited from just one more day, one more hour?

In reply, I can only look to my hero, my idol, my mom.

Like her, I could have made a choice. But like her, I knew inside that despite that the regrets, the doubts and the lost sleep, this imperfect juggling act was the only way I could be happy.

Sometimes people got hurt in the process. Sometimes my newspaper did not get my full attention when it -- and you -- deserved it. Sometimes my professors had to suffer the insult of a student who just couldn't stay awake in their class.

But as I sit here fighting back tears, I know it was worth it. I'm leaving here happier, more fulfilled than I ever could have imagined.

My final question, my last nagging doubt, is not whether I would do it all over again -- I would, in a heartbeat -- it's whether everyone else in my life, all the people, jobs and assignments I juggled, would do it again with me.

My only reassurance now is the knowledge that I learned from the best, from a superwoman. As one of the pins my mom so skillfully juggled, I never felt left out. I never felt neglected. Whenever I needed her, she was there.

Now I'm no superwoman, but I hope that one day all of you can say the same about me.