A thing that is better than awesome

First, a little backstory:

I'm awesome.

We all are. We're all awesome at something whether we make it public or not. 

Let's agree on that. Think about your awesomeness, and just keep that in mind while you read.

Here is why I'm awesome.

I'm honest. With myself, with others, but mostly with kindness.

I know where my love and attention makes a difference .

I will embarrass myself sticking up for someone who won't, or can't defend themselves.

I will likely spend my life helping little kids work through problems that keep them from feeling strong.

See?

Awesome.

107 days ago, I sat at this laptop and considered my trepidation over going back to school for my degree. I am, what is called, a "non-traditional" student.

I found myself as anxious and unsure as I was on the first day of summer camp, of second grade, of the first real job with high heels and a purse that matched, of the first week in a new town with four little kids and no friends.

I wrote about it, and then I went to school.

In no time, I wasn't  waking up worried about the day ahead. In no time, I was parking in the right place and sitting in the right classroom. In no time, I was sitting in my loft surrounded by texts and studies and folders and Gus. In no time, I was getting first grades which were – oh my GOD! – A's!! In no time, I got my first F because I didn't know the instructions for the assignment were on line. 

I resubmitted, but I was crushed.  Not only did I realize how much I had to learn, but had to learn just to do homework. 

I started asking myself, do I really need this?

Do I need to be waking up worried about an exam or paper deadline?  Do I need to be sitting amongst sleepy teenagers in a shuttle bus on a freezing cold, overcast day in Durham missing my own grown children? Do I need fussy, nervous professors lecturing me and my adult classmates about proper classroom behavior ("an absence without documentation is considered unexcused!!").

Non-traditional students have what's called "life experience." My experience prior to going in was about becoming who I am, and teaching younger people to be who they are.

And where would I use that, I wondered?  Will I confront the classmate who badmouths other classmates who are absent and say, "You know, if you found out someone was doing that to you, wouldn't you be crushed?" Should I sit down with a project partner who is never prepared for meetings and ask him, are you really doing your best?"

I've been keeping track of the effects of discomfort, which I now understand are actually the effects of learning if one has only planned to stay the same.  Yes, I wanted my degree, but I wanted my degree in my existing awesomeness, which is not why degrees are made. Degrees reward "learning," not "being."

Or, in my case, degrees reward being willing to learn, to adapt, to change and ultimately make refreshed decisions about pretty much everything.

The worst moments were when I realized what I didn't know and didn't think I wanted to learn but really feared I wouldn't be able to.

I had a talk with that non-traditional student in the mirror.

What if I could put new eyes and ears on this situation of not-my-habitat? Maybe think about affecting change rather than being so affected by it. How about that?

Moments of what-I-didn't-know arrived right alongside those when I realized what I do know, and don't have to learn. I reached out to a young student who seemed to be just a little too stressed. I held the hands of a homeless man while he cried over what he'd let happen to himself. I got to know the janitors in Durham and Manchester, making one repeat his name until I pronounced it correctly. I met fantastic twenty-somethings who made me laugh really hard, or just rethink something in the car later.  

Time after time, I used the advice of a child development professor I met twenty-five years ago:  never miss an opportunity to shut up.

I am a worrier by nature. In the beginning, it put me in my own way. But I began to learn that there is limited satisfaction in how well you do things if it's because it's all you know. That is what worry will do when it is rooted in uncertainty and self-doubt, before it flowers into humility and finally, change.   

Change is how new-awesomeness happens.

New-awesomeness is how thoughts of "Maybe I can't," turn into "I'll just do it."

107 days ago, I couldn't believe the awesomeness of what I'd signed up for.  In no time, I wished I'd never started. In no time, I was listening to selected classic rock  in the car to get fired up for an exam. Three weeks ago, I was registering for the next semester like it was nothing.

That was, this is, life. It was, it is happening every day. I wish sometimes, that I could gain the best understanding of life not 100, or 50, or 10 days later, but in real time. That, however, is like saying I wish I could learn to make great beef stew in thirty minutes. Beef stew is glorious and memorable because there is time and simmering involved.  

I was awesome. I raised fantastic kids, and have great relationships with outstanding people that make me whole. I'm a published writer who has contributed work to a parenting book that is now with a major publisher.

But I wasn't open-minded, tolerant, humble, observant, or grateful enough. 107 days later,  I'm a better person, a thing that is better than awesome.

I can live with that.

I finished my last final of the semester today. The next semester starts in fifteen days. It will be here in a blink. I'll let you know how it goes.

See you soon.