It Can be Very Difficult

to convince three young adults that I live with that I am actually "in college" again.  They seem to think that privilege is reserved for them.  :-)  While I have been taking online craft classes for years, and while I have been taking 1 to 2 day intensive technology related classes at my workplace for years, I realize that I have tended to think of those things as optional....quite a few of the craft classes I have paid for and then just downloaded the lessons, being too busy at the time to actually complete most of them.  And sometimes life has interfered with the short technology classes and I have either skipped them or gone home in the midst of them, dragging along the manual and promising myself that I will learn more on my own later. Later most often never comes, as there are new classes and new interruptions in the following weeks.

Recently, with work related classes, I have grown cynical and felt that self-improvement is illusional.  You can learn new software, but you will rarely be given the opportunity to use what you have learned, and it certainly won't get you ahead in any significant way at work.  This fall I have more of a "this is the rest of your life" feeling.  Not at all dissimilar to how I once felt as a full time college student.  Back then I believed that I was defining myself by what I learned; I was in a constant quest for self-improvement and reveled in finding unexpected connections between the topics that I studied.

Now, with my current classes, I am starting to look beyond my retirement date, wondering if anything I learn now might be turned to my personal advantage at that time.  I feel like I will need to live by my wits if I expect to do anything more than barely survive on my salary.  That is both a refreshing and a terrifying feeling to have.  I make jokes to my friends that perhaps next year they will pass by me on the street as I sell the homeless peoples' newspaper, Street Spirit.  But maybe, instead, I will earn money by writing, or web designing or utilizing the topic of some future spring class that I might take.

One thing I now share with my young adults is the fear of blowing deadlines, understudying before a test, having a panic attack when our home internet system goes down.  At the same time, it's not all that bad to suffer from a bit of fear, as it reminds me that these classes have grades and consequences, yet also rewards and recognitions.  It's good to travel down that path again; it's good to make new beginnings in my academic life.