School Days Again

The dreams began the same way, me standing befuddled in hallway of a school, just as classes are changing. Students spill out of the rooms walking quickly, talking in high pitched excitement (the girls), and low mumbles (the boys.) I stand in the middle of it, not sure where I'm going. Am I late for the class just ending or early for the class about to begin. Later, in another hallway, or a cafeteria or a dormitory, I am the only students in her sixties trying to find a lunch table or climb into a twin bed. These are the dreams I have had for the past several years. I am in college, a complete misfit, but happy nonetheless.

Pay attention to your dreams. Your heart speaks through them, and sometimes it shouts into your sleeping ear. Later this summer, I will re-enter a university, on a path to my MFA. After nearly forty years, I am completing the education that stopped when life happened and by that I mean the life of my son.

The first inhibiting voice asked me whether I could learn new information and link new ideas to my existing neural data bank. In short, did I have the plasticity to pull off an advanced degree in creative writing. All the popular neuroscience I read indicated that it is possible for an older brain to learn, especially when presented with ideas which challenge existing perceptions. That sounded like exactly the experience I was looking for: a shaking up of my personal literary acumen so as to stretch and stimulate my creativity. If neuroscience said I could do it, who was I to argue that I could not.

Will earning an advanced degree truly help me become a more successful writer? This was my second inhibiting question and it was a big one. I don't yet have the answer, but whatever I learn will be mine to keep forever; it will never wear out and I will never outgrow it. Whether I become the bestseller I long to be or not, what I learn can never be taken away from me. How I use the ideas I acquire will be my responsibility.

Am I ready to return to school? Will it be as fulfilling as in my dreams? Will I leave in disappointment after one semester? I don't know the answers to those questions. What I do know for certain sure is that whatever experience I have, I will benefit from it and that is reason enough to take the plunge.

If you have returned to school, or to a hobby or passion, after a long absence, I'd love to hear your experience.