Going Back to Move Forward

We've all had the dream where you suddenly find yourself naked in public.  You question how you could possibly have managed to get, not only out of the house without clothes, but all the way to wherever you are when you make the realization.  This dream is not nearly so reoccuring  for me as the dream that I have to go back to school - to high school no less!  In that dream I am usually overcompensating by telling everybody I have a year and a half of University under my belt, that I shouldn't be there.  Because in my dream I don't get to go back as a moderately thin 18 year old who actually enjoyed my high school years; no, no, I'm a 30-something mother of three trying to fit in with the moderately thin 18 year olds AND stay on top of all that work! (Usually I can't even find the classroom.)   I've lost track of how many times I've had this dream over the years.  It would seem I've come to terms with exposing my expanding 'horizons'  in public but not with admitting that I dropped out of school.

Well, if things keep going the way they are for me, you may just find me at the grocery store naked because one of my worst nightmares has come true.  I've gone back to high school.  Actually, it's in conjunction with going back to University.  It turns out that my Ontario Grade 11 Math is not recognized in BC and I need it as a pre-requisite for other courses.  Let's just say that I was an above average student in high school… except when it came to Grade 11 Math.  I struggled through that  %#@* course TWICE (after dropping it the first time) and I finally finished it by the skin of my teeth - or so I thought.  I am distinctly not excited about taking it a third time.  But chalk this up to another lesson about how if I'd stayed in school the first time I wouldn't have to jump through these hoops now.

How can I best set the example for my kids to 'stay in school'?  Apparently, I am a living example because one day my daughter (12 at the time) said to me: "You're so smart! If you'd stayed in school you could have done ANYTHING!"  So rather than jump on the implication that I was pretty much a failure, I grabbed that 'teaching moment' by the horns and said, "How about you learn from my mistakes and stay in school!"  Aye, there's the rub.  Because I don't actually feel like it was a mistake because then I wouldn't be where I am now.  You see, I get immeasurable satisfaction from being a mother.  It's the one and only thing I've always known I wanted to be – so you could say I chose Motherhood as my major… talk about perpetual undergrad studies!  But alas, I am going back to move forward – now, when I have less time and more committments than ever (specifically three important ones),  but it's those "committments" that motivate this search for betterment.   I want to prove that I'm worthy of the admiration my kids seem to have for me.  And I am expecting those dreams to start changing – although now maybe when I do find the classroom, I'll be naked.