Starting a New Chapter

Tomorrow marks the first day of school here in Dallas for all levels. For me, it marks the beginning of a new chapter.

I have not sat in a college classroom in over fourteen years and I am freaking out a little on the inside. I dropped out of college to join the military mainly because I couldn’t afford to go on my own, and my parents couldn’t afford to pay for me.  Over the fourteen year break since that time, I took some college courses through the military, though those were held on the military base, so my classmates were all shipmates and when you live and work side by side the same people, sitting in a classroom with them after working hours is just another facet of the same old routine. Not the least bit intimidating.

This time I don’t have any common ground with these people, nor will I have prior acquaintance with any of them. Good thing I do not have anxiety attacks at the thought of meeting a room full of new people!

I am simultaneously exhilarated to have a purpose outside of the walls of my apartment, thereby igniting the Search for My Inner Spock, and anxious about the newness of going back to school on an actual college campus. Will I  be the oldest person in my class? Am I going to be able to keep up? Will the students all be more acclimated to the pace than me? Am I overthinking this? Should I even worry about it? OMG! Luckily my first day only has one class scheduled so I get to acclimate into the class thing a little at a time, like stepping into the ocean at the beach.

I am not one to shy away from a challenge, but many conflicting thoughts run through my mind. I want to be my own person, and not give two figs about what anyone thinks of me. I know I am not in the best shape, my wardrobe is sadly three to five years out of date and I have the start of (what will probably end up being) a glorious head of gray hair (thank you fucked up genetics).

Yet, I am single again. Do I want to care about that? Am I looking, and more importantly am I caring if others are looking? My inside says “HELL TO THE NO” at the thought of getting back into dating, meeting someone else-or doing anything that might attract that sort of attention.

My last relationship was painful and left many emotional scars. I am the last woman on earth that needs another man in her life. With that knowledge I suppose I gladly accept that I am not in any competition for attention with what are likely my fresher classmates, so I will go to do what I aimed to do in the first place, get the best grades I can and get my degree and maybe meet some people (gender unimportant) with which to make friends.

I psych myself up and tell myself that this is a piece of cake, like all other challenges that I have encountered and overcome. I read an article in Forbes, it was about workers in their 20’s and it had some stuff about the growth of the human brain, how the early twenties are the time for frontal lobe maturity, where the brain develops and matures the ability to apply logic and reason to situations where previously the emotions would apply and therefore allow the person to make illogical and emotion driven decisions (this could explain much of my married life :/ ).

The takeaway from this article was that what you did in your twenties, whatever skills you learned, life experiences you had, prepped your new mature brain with the tools to handle your later life in the thirties and beyond. That’s a neat way to look at the time I spent in motherhood. Pretty much all of it spent as a mother and in active duty military service, my skill-set includes being able to multitask, organize units and turn into a ninja at the drop of a hat.

I suppose my Swiss Army Life might be a little rusty in some areas, but I relish the idea that my previous life experience wasn’t a huge waste. I will now be balancing my school, kids and their school and possibly a work-study job. Talk about jumping in with both feet–but that’s my style: Full Speed Ahead (Navy pun intended).