Welcome Back

I went through a funk at the beginning of this school year and finally,  the air is starting to clear. It’s just that with both kids in school all day I had no idea what I wanted to do with myself. Actually, looking back, I knew what I really wanted to do, I just didn’t know how to start or if I could and so that negated the dream for a while.

I want to be a teacher. I want to help foster creativity and growth in little people, the way that so many have done for my children. My children have been lucky enough to have such wonderful people teach them every day and when I volunteer in their classrooms, which I do weekly, I find myself watching the way that their teachers interact with the kids and it’s like a lightbulb for me every time. That is what I want to do when I grow up.

I had been quietly researching going back to school for quite a while and was coming up uninspired and, frankly, a little scared. There is so much going on in our lives, with Eliot’s business and work schedule and the kid’s school and after school activities. When would I have time to go back to school? How would I pay for school?

Online university. This is what Eliot said to me when I told him my dream of being a teacher, followed by all the reasons I couldn’t do it. I love this about him. He will always, always find a way for things to work out. I come up with all these glass half empty reasons why something won’t work and he counters with at least one way that it could work. I thought I was an optimist, and I really think that I am, but maybe too much of a realist to see the creative solution sometimes. I began researching online degrees and universities and was encouraged by what I found. This was not the boring,  correspondence course work I had thought it would be. So, last week, I found myself applying to the University of Phoenix.

Of course, the entire time I was going through the application process, I was preparing myself for something to go wrong. I wouldn’t allow myself to get excited about the possibility of going to school and having a career that I love, just in case. I completed the application process on Friday and was expecting  to hear from my admissions counselor on Tuesday. I spent the entire day cleaning and scouring the house, because that helps me when I am thinking.

Right about the time that my skin was about to fall off on my hands from being in water half the day, the phone rang. It was my counselor, calling to congratulate me on being accepted to the Universities Associates in the Arts/Elementary Education program. I was also approved for my loan. I couldn’t believe it. And I was doubly shocked when I started to cry. I hadn’t allowed myself  too much time to think about the what if scenario of it all working out. I was and am so excited!

When I picked the boys up from school and told them my good news, they bombarded me with congratulations. Wolfie was unbelievably excited and wanted to know all the details of what college was going to be like for me ,and Hammy wanted to share with me all his ideas about where I could teach and how we could see each other everyday at school when I am a teacher.

I love that this is something that everyone in my family is excited about and will benefit from. I have been at a crossroads since the beginning of the year about what to do with myself now that I don’t have little babies at home all day.  I have looked down each path and tried to see what was up ahead. This path is the one I was most afraid of, but also the most drawn to. I think that is a good thing. Wish me luck!