Here we go again (back to school)

So, here I go again.  I am back to school starting next week.   I got my first syllabus on 1/20/13 and the excitement started.  I started marking my calendar for reading, projects, quizzes, midterms and finals.   Then I looked at my calendar and saw it was very full.   But, I am so excited about what I will be learning this semester that I did not really get too overwhelmed.   Then I opened my calendar and realized that the boys baseball schedule has not come out yet, oh, any my work scheduled was not showing, and that means I now have this…oh and that…and well I did have my moment.  

Can I do this?

The short answer is YES!  

This is how:   I look at this semester as just that.   A semester is 12 weeks of my life.   I can do this for 12 weeks.  I can even do it to my best on about 99% of the days.   I will adjust my evenings to reading and writing for school, not for personal reading and mind numbing TV.

When people ask how are you going back to school with a family and with a full time job?  I say I do it one day at a time.   Then the next question is: When are you done with school?  This one gives me hives. The answer that people want is when will I graduate?   When will I be ordained in the church?   In all honesty I don’t know.   I am working towards both, and it will happen, but I just don’t quite know when.  I have a goal to graduate by 2015 and be ordained in 2016.   But, I hate saying that- it is seems so very far away.   But, if I say the semester is over in May.  I can say that with confidence and joy. 

In May of 2012 I attended the Ordination service for the North Texas Conference.  It was such a beautiful service.  In the moment when one ordains stood for her moment of blessing and her family came to stand with her I had a moment of crushing disappointment and fear.  You see she had 2 boys in her family and they looked to be Jr. High and High School age.   It was in this moment that I figured out that my boys will also be young men when I complete this process.   It truly depressed and overwhelmed me.  I went home and cried.   I fell into a hole of worry, pity, self-doubt, and just overall blah.    Then I washed my face and though about life.   It is so fast, crazy fast!   The reality is that my boys will be driving sooner than later, Slick in 6 years and Mr. Determined in 10, that I have been with Mr. half of my adult life.  This process that I am in has gone by like a blink in time.  I am half way done with my class work.   It has been something that I have LOVED.   It has added to my joy (and my stress) but it is happening.  

The perspective is that time goes by so fast, and I know 2016 will be here before I know it.  But, if I look at it by 12 weeks, well that is a blink.  That time frame is so doable.   So, when something overwhelms you, have your moment, and then look at it again in a “doable” way.   Look at it in a way that can give you peace.  That might be one day, one week, or one year.   But, find that perspective that will not cause you to go into hives.

Gift from my sister when I started school.   I love this still today!