I had a life plan once. It covered everything from ideal career paths to names for my future children (first Jackson, and then Ella Marie.) I didn’t just doodle some ideas in the margin of a notebook, either. This was a comprehensive, multi-page document housed in a faux leather binder with color-coded tabs.

Pretty as it was, the binder and its plans erased themselves from my memory as soon as they hit my bookshelf. It was a bit like the scene where Indiana Jones finds the ark, except in reverse. All the ethereal light and choirs were going and then, poof, there was just another binder on my bookshelf and I was wondering if there was anything good on TV.

I took a year off. That was part of the plan, actually, or would have been if it had been a single year. It wasn’t. It was ten years, one husband, and two kids. My version of a goal was reduced to leaving the house without spit-up on my shirt.

My former plans were the furthest thing from my mind until the day they attacked me. I was dusting when it happened. My rag swept over the binder and the corner of the once carefully applied label ripped free. My left eye narrowed to a dangerous slit. Peeling stickers are worse than fingernails on a chalkboard for me, so I rubbed my finger over it in an increasingly frenetic effort to get the darned thing to re-stick. And then I had this crazy thought. Why not read it? You know, for kicks.

Twenty minutes later, I put down my cleaning supplies and walked over to the kids with steely determination leading the way. When I turned off the TV they whined piteously for an encore. I, being fully aware that they’d seen him rescue the freaking anaconda ninety-three times, remained unmoved. I lifted my hand for silence and for once, got it.

“Mommy’s going back to school,” I announced quickly, because I had to tell someone, didn’t I?

“Cookie?” my daughter asked, pinching the air like a lobster.

“The chocolate ones,” my older, wiser, son clarified.

“Right,” I acquiesced, heading for the cupboard.

Well, it wasn’t an awful idea. Cookies would keep them busy, which was good since I had very important things to do. Afterall, I was a college freshman.

Almost.

A few short weeks later the almost was history and I was settled in front of my laptop for my first class. Online, of course, because with two kids my ‘free time’ consisted of a twelve minute period between bed-time and please-go-back-to-bed-time. Still, it was my class, so I clicked around diligently, taking careful notes on the spiral bound notebook at my side feeling extremely pleased with myself and oh so scholarly. I clicked on the Syllabus link last. And then I screamed.

Alright, I didn’t scream, but I would have. If my kids hadn’t been sleeping, I would have leapt four feet in the air and hovered there like a cartoon character, ears smoking and eyes bulging.
As it was, I wilted like week old lettuce.

Somehow, this wasn’t quite the university dream I had in mind, me in my pajamas fighting tears as I tried to decide how long it takes to read eighty pages and write seven hundred words. I mean, just how much Benadryl could I give my kids before it crossed a moral boundary? There was no way I was going to be able to handle it.

A year later and I still think there’s no way I’ll be able to handle it, but somehow I am. Granted, 19th century literature loses its romance when you’re reading it while stirring macaroni and cheese. And I seriously doubt any study guide would recommend the crayon-marked, peanut butter crusted corner of my sofa as an ideal learning atmosphere. But, I’m sticking with it. By God, I will get an education.

At the very least, I’ll have both feet to stand on when I’m drilling my kids about their own college plans fifteen years from now. And at the most? Well, I might need a bigger binder. I’ve got some planning to do.