following my yellow brick road

Last week I headed out of my house at an early time than usual and headed onto a very unfamiliar path.

A familiar path would of lead me to breakfast, with my kids and I meeting our good friends. Or heading to the pool for the day. Another familiar day would of involved what I like to call "our kick it into gear" day, by the way my kids JUST LOVE those days. When we CLEAN from top to bottom. And I mean from TOP to BOTTOM. Running around getting errands done for me, the hubby, the kids, the dogs and anyone else on that day, would be another familiar path.

But not last Friday at 8 in the morning. I was heading to Kennesaw to attend orientation for the day. I have already met with an advisor, talked with people at the bursars office, gotten my info done for parking id cards etc. So why, oh why, do I need to attend this ALL DAY affair was beyond me.
I'm 33, mother of 3 that can juggle more balls in the air with a smile on my face and hopefully good hair than I care to admit. Basically I have my shit together, so why do the higher powers above think I need this day of the unfamiliar?

Well to get you familiar, silly girl!

That's what the skinny, overly peppy advisor told me, oh yes she did!

Driving there that morning I was totally fine. I found the garage they emailed us to park in, got my stuff together and headed out of my truck door. And I was stuck, overwhelmed for a moment. Overwhelmed by such gratitude that this was happening to me. Thank you lord, husband, my babies, my family, my friends, is what I was thinking. And last but not least thank you Heidi, for FINALLY doing this. Stepping into the unfamiliar and doing this, it's about damn time girl, I say out loud to myself as my legs finally started to work again.

The day was uneventful, me being the old lady eager student I had already done all of the things we talked about that day. The main reason I had to be there was to register. You couldn't register being an up and coming freshmen without going through orientation.

During our lunch break our chaperone's (who were both in their sophomore year and used words like AWESOME for every answer and said WTH more times than I can count, I really didn't know people talked in text code, first lesson learned, they do) invited us to eat lunch with them. But me being the rebel that I, chose an outside option by myself. I called Ms. Lena to check on my babies and gave her the run down on the sights I was seeing.

OK girl, so I'm looking at the fraternities and sororities and all the other clubs set up with their boards, one even has a power point thing going on, I tell her.

And of course there's the typical jock standing here and the unpopular kid standing there.


But what I couldn't help to notice where the parents.....


The looks of fear, reservation and pride on their faces. Watching their children embark on this part of their lives and (god bless them) getting ready to let go.

In all of the millions speeches we heard that day, one quote stuck with me after I left. One gentlemen who was the assistant dean of something of other (who by the way DID NOT say WTH not one time and I so wanted to kiss him for it) said , you WON'T be successful if your not happy. Not that you CAN'T be, you WON'T be. And I thought how true is that.
Not in a financial aspect but a LIFE aspect. So I have decided that either by my graduation date or my 40th birthday, (which ever comes first) I'm tattooing those words down the side of my leg, in another language of course because that's just the way tattoos roll and really it's so much cooler when people have no clue what it says :)

OK so I'm totally kidding about the ink, but loved those words.

I'm happy, therefore I can move on to this portion of my life and whether its with A's, B's or (gulp) C's, I will be successful because.....well I'm happy.

Sappy and cheesy yes I know, but SO TRUE.

I'm excited about my journey ahead, unfamiliar and all. I'm excited to be able to document it here and have all my blogging buddies along on this ride with me. Some of you have sent me emails of encouragement and I truly do appreciate each one.

Classes start in 2 weeks and I'm sure there will be LOTS to talk about :)

I'm following my yellow brick road y'all, one step at a time.