As I sat in the testing facility of our local community college I began to feel really old. The test proctor began to read the instructions and I realized that he was about twenty years my junior. The girl across from me looked the same age as my daughter and the guy next to me asked me if I was a professor. Ugh…I was feeling ancient! I took a deep breath and remembered my goals AND then put on my reading glasses to began my entrance exam.
On a daily basis, I view myself as a “hip” 40-year-old who has many years to live it up! But the kids that were taking this same exam were making me want to ask them if they brushed their teeth and ate breakfast….
I knew that going back to college as an adult would have some challenges but I was not prepared for the number of challenges that enrolling and registering would have. Do y’all know that they no longer PRINT out college catalogs?? Everything is online. Which sounds more efficient but I do not even want to calculate the hours I have spent trying to learn how to use the online registration and financial aid “self-service” systems.
Long gone are the days of number 2 pencils and scantrons. Standardized tests are online AND you know your results immediately (or at least within a few hours). No more waiting by the mailbox and praying to see if you passed. No wonder these millennials and post-millennials enter the workforce with the expectations of instant gratification!
Going back to college also meant that I would need to carry a laptop, books, writing utensils, notebooks, and my lunch around. Which meant I needed a backpack…Is Jansport still hip? What about my back? Is there a backpack with back support or do they still make those wheeling ones? And do they have a place for my reading glasses, a sweater if I get cold, a tank top if I start hot flashing, and my daily vitamins…..
I do not remember needing all of these items at 18 years old!
Now do not get me wrong, I am grateful for the opportunity to return to college. Being able to launch my career to the next level and help more people has always been a dream of mine. Luckily I have an extremely supportive family and a few grants and scholarships that are making this dream possible. I also have my “why”. Which is to be able to reach underserved areas and provide a functional medicine approach to their healthcare.
I have watched mom friends of mine return to school with the goal of becoming doctors, physicists, psychiatrists, and lawyers. These moms are either younger or around my age and I always rolled my eyes when they made comments about feeling like they should be baking cookies for their classmates or encouraging their lab partners to eat more vegetables. Now I get it! We become ingrained as moms to take care of others and it is hard to turn that part of our brain off. Instinctively we begin to mom our kids, our classmates, our spouses, our friends….we are ingrained to help and care-take.
So how do we turn that part of our brain off so that we can learn? I have no idea. As this new chapter of my life begins. I look forward to handling the challenges with humor, learning about cool new music so I can be “hip” with my teenagers, and providing my mom nutritional skills to my classmates.
