Peggy, a fifty-three year old grandmother decides to go back to school.
Peggy, a fifty-three year old grandmother, stood before the doors of the Registrar’s Office at Marshall University. “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she muttered under her breath. “I must be out of my mind. What was I thinking?”
She had quit college when she was nineteen years old. She had been young and in love. In order to get married, she needed to get a good-paying job to help pay the bills, so good-bye, College. She didn’t think much of it at the time, because she had been living on her own for about a year and was ready to marry and have a partnership with someone, always intending to go back to school later.
As expected, children came along and financial needs were great, so school got put on the back burner.
Every couple of years, she would bring up the subject with her husband, Zack. “I want to go back to school,” she would say.
He always replied supportively. “Why don’t you?”
“No,” she’d say. “We can’t really afford it.”
“Then don’t go,” he would say, shrugging his shoulders.
All her siblings had college degrees. “I’m not stupid,” she would tell herself every time she thought about it. Another two or three years would pass, and her self esteem dropped lower and lower. She watched her friends become teachers, social workers, even doctors, for heaven’s sake.
Every fall, as she watched the school year began, it was the same thing. “I want to go back to college,” she would whine.
“Look, Peggy,” Zack said, after he had finally heard it enough. “If you want to go—go!”
“I’m getting too old. I’d feel funny.”
He looked at her in exasperation. “What do you want me to do?”
“Nothing!” she said, longing for it to be different. “There’s nothing you can do.”
More autumns turned into winters and winters into spring. Her youngest daughter Faith was beginning her last semester at Liberty University, and her first grandchild had just been born.
“I want to … “ she began.
“Peggy!” Zack snapped. “Get through the fence.”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you want to go back to school or not?”
“I want to go back, but I’m afraid.”
“What are you afraid of?”
“I’m too old.”
Zack put his arm around her shoulders. “You’re wiser. You’re smarter than you were thirty years ago.”
“It’s so hard for me to make decisions.”
Zack turned her to him and gazed deep into her eyes. “Is that so?”
She nodded, her mouth turned downward.
“Let’s see,” he said, stroking his jaw. “Who decided what our meals for the week would be?”
She just glared at him.
“Who chooses our furnishings and most of our clothes? Who chose the names for our children? Who organized Boy Scout outings, arranged to drop three kids off to piano lessons, cheerleader practices, and little league games, while maintaining a home and balancing the check … ” He stopped. Shall I go on?”
“But …”
“Don’t say but, again. You are on this side of a fence. On this side is your secure, safe, and comfortable past and present. You can remain here the rest of your life, but you will always be restless, seeking something you want but don’t have.”
She lowered herself to the sofa, her head in her hands.
“Or …”
She looked up.
“You can go through the gate and take part in a multitude of new, exciting experiences that will be opened to you with a college diploma. It may be scary, but it will bring you a lot of joy and self-satisfaction.”
He paused. “It’s your decision, honey. Only you can make it. But realize this. If you don’t go—you already made a decision. You decided to stay and be constantly tormented by the fact that you didn’t finish college.”
So, here she was, standing in front of the registrar’s door. She could see that fence. As she pushed open the glass door to the office, she could envision the gate opening, and she stepped into her strange, new, exciting world.
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