Lifelong Learning

My husband will be done with graduate school in six weeks. (That is, he will be done, provided he passed his class last semester--we are still crossing our fingers for that one.) Although he has technically only been in graduate school since January of 2014, he has been attending school for our entire five-year marriage, minus the six months he took off between his undergraduate and his graduate degree.

For the first 15 months of our marriage, I was also attending the university. Sometimes I think of this time as our "Golden Year." We always seemed to have enough--enough time together, enough money, enough to keep us busy. We would spend our evenings doing homework side-by-side on the couch. Our brains were constantly being exercised. And I loved it. I love to learn. I love school. I loved learning with him.

But then I graduated. That last semester of school, admittedly, was my least favorite, but that could have been because I had morning sickness as a constant companion and a job with a boss that was highly stressful to me. So, once graduation happened, parenthood happened, and me quitting my job happened, my new life was a relief and a blessing.

I enjoy being a stay-at-home mom. I wouldn't want to be ANYWHERE else, despite the hard days. There is one thing I do miss, however.

My brain.

A friend once told me that she lost a quarter of her brain with each child. She has five children. You do the math.

According to her logic, I should still have half a brain left. I seem to have misplaced it though. There are so many days when I can't remember the simplest things--how to do math, grammar rules, basic history facts. It didn't help when last week a friend posted an article on Facebook about how Type II diabetes is pretty much the same thing as Alzheimer's. That induced a bit of panic in me.

It is difficult for me to send my husband off to school each week more than just because it means another three hours without him and being a one-woman show with our cranky kids. I suppose, in a word, I am jealous. Every day he comes home and tells me about what he has been doing that day--talking about the software problems he countered, the complicated processes he has run, the future of the business where he is employed. On school nights, he comes home full of enthusiasm about what he is learning and the discussions he has experienced. I nod my head and pretend like I understand the business jargon. To me, he seems so smart. Of course, he has always been smart, but now he just keeps getting smarter. He knows so many things. He can do this complicated job, and what can I do? Name every character on Daniel Tiger and Sofia the First. Recite the first Pinkalicious book by heart. Sing 20 different songs about spiders, pigs, buses, pumpkins, witches, or monkeys on command.

Growing up, I was always the smart child. My siblings struggled in school, each for their own different reason and challenge. I never really did. My biggest challenges were people and my own emotions. But the actual acadmics? With the exception of one pop quiz in geometry when my brain just plain quit, I never struggled to learn and know and succeed in school.

At this point, however, I'd probably say I am the least smartest child of all my siblings. My older brother has a juris doctorate. My little sister is a CNA, working toward being an MA and she is so stinkin smart when it comes to all things children and medical. My little brother, well, he knows everything (and what he doesn't know, he covers up with his charm and witty comments that have you laughing so hard you forgot what he was supposed to be doing in the first place).

So, I've lost that title, and you know what? It's taken a while, but I'm okay with it. I'm happy--ecstatic, really--to see my siblings succeed.

But sometimes I do miss that intellectual part of me that seems to have retired.

Here's the thing I am realizing, though. I may not be gaining academic knowledge or career experience or excelling at a recognizable, formal institution, but every day I am still learning, and the things I am learning now are just as important as the things I learned in school, if not more so.

Things like how to adapt recipes to fit my family's needs and what we have in our pantry.
Finding the best deals to make our money stretch farther.
Recognizing when those around me are in need of love and service.
Instilling a love of reading in my children by not only reading to them every day, but being an example to them of a person who truly loves to learn through reading.
Working through threenager and toddler meltdowns with patience and a calm demeanor (still practicing that one).  I

 am learning how to learn from the past to shape the future. I am taking the time to do the small things--kiss an owie, play the piano while my kids "sing" on their chosen stage of our staircase, playing catch and baby dolls--and still, somehow, finding time to still be myself in the midst of it all.

This past week we picked up a book at the library by Weird Al Yankovic entitled, "When I Grow Up." During show and tell at school, a little boy named Billy shares with the class the long list of things he hopes to do with his life--everything from being a famous chef to a snail trainer to a deodorant tester. When his teacher kindly reminds him that he should probably narrow down his list, Billy says that his great-grandfather is 103 years old and still hasn't figured out what he wants to be.

Here's what I learned from that book: I've got time.

And according to the Christian Rock radio station, when your kids leave for college, mom gets her brain back.

I hope, wherever that half of my brain is being stored, that it has enough preservatives to last another 20+ years, because I've got a lot of things left to learn.