Going Back to School While Doing Life

        After convincing a 15 year old Bean to accompany me to the college campus, I pulled into the tree-lined parking lot and questioned my decision making skills. A skill I have flunked more than once in my life.

       I still wasn't sure if I was making the best decision. A life time had passed since I was college student.

       I made this current decision on a long five-hour drive home - after two equally long airplane flights - from a funeral.

      I think experts warn against such decision making. Good thing for me, I'm horrible at listening to experts.

        Bean stares at me, with the way she can, all impatience and a bundle of energy that I used to channel by having her run endless circles around the kitchen table. She fidgets with her seat belt, and frowns at the campus.

       I know she thinks I brought her along to convince her that college should be a future goal.

       I haven't.

       I have simply brought her for her company. And support.

       Even though I had decided to enroll in all online classes, so I can try to balance my role of mommy around the demands of homework, discussions, and quizzes - I still thought it was best to chat with my assigned mentor, in person- on which classes I should start with.

      So hence, the hour drive to campus to make human contact.

    Five months ago, on that long- February chilly drive home, carrying a numbness in my heart, and unshed tears behind my eyes, it was decided an accounting degree would be my best bet. It would pay well upon graduation - a very important point with me, since I was no longer that naive 20 year old who believed you could make a living off of hopes and dreams.

        And I needed a career that would work with my Crohn's. Because control is just me having the upper hand- it doesn't mean I can forget I have it.

       The only problem with this plan was every time I thought about this degree it felt like trying to shove a square peg into a round hole- just about chest level.

     But here I was, stepping onto the tidy green lawn of the summer-quiet college campus, having registered as a business major.

    Registering for classes was a group endeavor- consisting of transfer students - like me, sort of.

    Bean and I step into the room where we are suppose to meet together, and it is full of kids not much older than Bean and their parents.

    The smiling and perky college employee looks straight at Bean and asks her if she's here to register.

   Nope, that would be me. The 'mom figure' with crinkles around her eyes, thirty- ish more pounds than the first time I registered for college classes, a mortgage, three kids and a belly that looks like a road map.

   She startles, as if she has never registered someone in their thirties before for college and proceeds to sign me in.

   Bean and I sit down and wait, and people watch. Later she tells me. "You know I wouldn't need you there when I register for college. They all had their parents with them and they had associates degrees. How are they going to survive the real world?"

   Of course, this is coming from the kid who has told me I don't need to attend her open house for 10th grade. She was going with friends to meet her teachers and I didn't need to worry about it. I don't think you understand kid, I've been going to open houses for you since Kindergarten and you want me to stop now? But that would mean I would have to admit you're growing up...

    and able to function without me. Which was my ultimate goal...still it's hard.

   When the entire group has arrived for registration, we are taken to the computer lab and asked to sign in.

   Umm, slight problem. I had already logged in at home and changed my password. And forgot mentioned password at home.

  After obtaining help from another perky employee - I think it's in the mass amounts of cafeteria coffee they are consuming - I have managed to change my password and log in.

  Where I attempt to register for that first and extremely important accounting class, which is the basis for all the other subsequent accounting classes I need, and find that the class is full.

  And the other section is full. And I can't even take Acct 101 in town at the outreach campus, because that class is full.

  And is everyone in the world deciding to be an accountant?

  Of course, this starts a chain reaction of which classes I should sign up for, because you have to have Acct 101 before so many other business classes. And it's not offered next semester, so I would have to wait until next fall.

   I am feeling a little flustered at this point and start to make mistakes with the online registering, which Bean is quietly pointing out and helping me to the right pages. I have been on computers since games were played with DOS commands, yet I am fumbling my way through a simple online sign up form.

  The perky employee kindly helps, but I knows she's thinking I'm having trouble because of my age.

  And before you ask, wondering why I'm not obtaining a journalism degree - had you seen the job statistics on journalism and the pay?

  No, I'm as undecided as I was when I was young. Except not completely - my thoughts have circled around to graduate school but that seems too far into the future to plan. Yet, one of the classes I sign up for - I don't need for my bachelor's degree - I'm taking it because I need it to get into the graduate program I'm tentatively thinking about.

    I register for four classes and we leave. And then I decide we need Mexican food. We use Siri to direct us to the local favorite place for tacos and spicy, and I don't get lost. Not that you can really get lost in this tiny college town - just misplaced.