My freakout has begun.  You know, the I’m-starting-grad-school-in-10-days-while-working-full-time-and-parenting-two-young-kids-I-barely-keep-on-top-of-my-life-as-it-is-mother-of-God-what-have-I-done freakout.

What, you’ve never had one of those?

I ordered my textbooks online through Amazon last week and one arrived yesterday.  I skimmed through it and was immediately transported back into my very first sociology class, a place where I was introduced to the word “paradigm” and didn’t have a clue what was actually being discussed. I’m one of those people who would show up to lecture, half-ass the assigned reading and somehow manage to BS my way through the exam just enough to squeak by with a passing grade.  Honestly, it’s a wonder I have a bachelor’s degree, considering my astounding lack of study skills.

I’m someone who reads crappy romance/mystery novels – like the ones by Nora Roberts and Mary Higgins Clark – on the rare occasion that I actually sit down and read a book.  Do you know when I feel like I have time for that?  On airplanes.  In hotel rooms before I go to bed.  That’s about it.  Reading actual informative books – and comprehending them – is going to be a rude awakening.  As is eschewing my evening glass of wine and mindless TV for some serious study time.

I am fortunate enough to have a wonderful, supportive husband that takes an equal role in raising our kids.  But there are things that I must do that he won’t (because I am a control freak and also rather anal), or other things that he could do but doesn’t think about because they don’t bother him.  Things like the laundry, setting out clothes for the next day, vacuuming more than is strictly necessary, cleaning the cat box, straightening up the kids’ rooms, putting away rogue toys, etc., etc., etc.  So I am going to have to learn to ask for help when I need it, and also to lighten up a little.  A year from now, is it really going to matter that Miss T’s various dollhouse components didn’t get put away before I went to bed?  Settle down, self.

Not to mention all the other regular tasks that will still have to get done.  Cooking dinner, grocery shopping, going to the gym, going on occasional out of town trips to visit my nonagenarian grandmothers…none of these things will stop being important just because I have homework to get done.

I’m going to need another twelve hours in each day.

I have no doubt that I can do this.  Anyone who knows me in real life can attest to exactly how stubborn I am.  Hell, I ran a half-marathon powered primarily by sheer force of will.  Prior to running those 13.1 miles in San Francisco, the furthest I’d ever gone was 6.7.  But I did it.  If I want something, I go after it full-throttle and won’t stop until it’s mine.  I’m not worried about that at all.

It’s going to be hard.  Probably harder even than I’ve prepared myself for.  I ran into a professor I know at the grocery store on Sunday.  He had been kind enough to write me a letter of recommendation when I applied to ASU and so has an understandable interest in whether or not I succeed.  “Gotten started with those graduate classes yet?” he asked.  “Next week,” I replied.  “Remind me, do you have kids?” was his follow-up question.  When I answered, “Yeah, two of them, not quite 8 and 2 1/2,” he looked impressed.  “All that and you’re still planning to work full time?  Good luck,” he said sincerely. “You’ll need it.”

Thanks for that, dude.  Now I’m even more panicked than I was before.  I’m coping by telling myself that his graduate work was in HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS.  Of course it was a challenge.  GAAAAAAH.

But beyond the nerves, trumping the stress – is the excitement.  God, y’all, I’m so excited.  This is what I’ve always wanted.  It took me a lot of years to figure that out, and the path I chose is not the most direct, but this is what I am meant to do.

And I can’t wait to see where it takes me.