Back to School

It's almost time.
You can feel it in the way the air gets cooler more quickly in the evenings now.
It gets darker earlier.

Moms everywhere are furiously completing their school supply shopping.
I am too.
Only this year I'm not just doing the planning and preparing for my girls to go back to school.
I'm going back to school too.
In a big way.

This past winter was full of application packages, reference letters, essay writing, and transcripts.
Spring brought phone calls and interviews.
May brought a letter in the mail.
"You've been accepted...." it said.
And I breathed a satisfied sigh.

This fall I will officially begin my Master's Degree in Marriage and Family Therapy at the University of Winnipeg.

It seems a perfect fit for me.  A part-time program that includes 500 hands-on clinical hours that will result in professional credentials that will hopefully open doors I've only been able to stand outside of.

I am proud of myself.  I wanted something and I chased it down until I got it.
You see, I'm an excellent dreamer.
I always have a plan and a vision - but the follow up is where my challenge lies.
But this time I dug my heels in.
This time I really wanted it.

I am thankful for a husband who committed his support to me as I see this through.
Who finally has has a wife who has all of her kids in school full time and could make use of that great Bachelor's degree she has hanging on the wall  that could afford her a real job with a real paycheck....
..... who still said - "Do it.  If this is what you want, do it now.  I want you to do it."
And so I am.

I am mindful of the gift of the last many many years in which I was able to be home with my 3 amazing companions.
       I was the nose wiper and the apple slicer and the stain remover.
       I was the tear wiper and the story reader and the couch cuddler.
     
But now they're in school and they've got their own job to do.
It seems it's my turn to find out what I was born to do.
And I start in September.




(If you'd like to find out more about the MMFT program at the University of Winnipeg, read this article published this spring in the Winnipeg Free Press.)