For an entire year, I felt like I was getting away with something.
Some of you might be too young to understand that. Some too old. Some too caught up in the machine, the politics of day-to-day higher education to realize exactly what we get to do every day as members of a university community. But for me, it’s as vivid as, well, a few months ago.
My first career lasted 18 years, five months. And I loved every minute until the last six months.
During that half-year period leading up to my media company’s bankruptcy, I navigated my staff through a tumultuous sea of budget tightening, staff reductions and across-the-board pay cuts. A palpable atmosphere of fear and uncertainty hung over every day. My wife hated what it was doing to me. I hated what it was doing to me. Even my dog, Cash, questioned my commitment to Frisbee each evening.
Emerging exhausted, I took a year away from work to recharge the batteries. I came to Western to learn something new, explore a recently developed passion.
There was something almost subversive about returning to university after so long.
And tomorrow, it ends. At least for now. I officially earn my master’s degree in environment and sustainability.
It was my best idea ever. Or my wife’s best idea ever. I cannot remember who suggested quitting our jobs, packing up our lives and moving. I know if it didn’t work out, one of us would remember who made the decision more clearly.
I do know I was determined to do it right this time. I wasn’t ready for university at 18 years old. Young. Dumb. Sheltered. Adorable in my Rolling Stones T-shirt, granted, but wholly and completely unprepared for the experience.
I have always been a reader, a writer, a general all-around nerdy dude. I always loved learning, but at the time, I didn’t understand education.
That was the piece that was missing.
I was fortunate to find journalism early on, and I pursued it with great passion, often at the expense of my marks and parent’s patience. But my goals were different then. I went to school because it was the thing to do to get a job. And I did.
But this time, I simply wanted to better myself. Even now, it seems so indulgent, almost selfish. At any time, I thought someone would walk up to me and tell me to get back to work. Even on the busiest, most frustrating of days, I still couldn’t believe what I was doing.
I won’t say the opportunity for higher education is wasted on the young. I will say, however, that appreciation for the opportunity grows with age.
This couldn’t be done alone. I had a wife who preferred a happy husband to a working one; classmates who made each day enjoyable; and even at 38, it’s still nice to have supportive parents. The professors I grew to know, and some I now call friends, opened me to a world of opportunities.
To each I owe deepest thanks. Without them, I would never have pulled this off.
In just a year, I am now a Londoner, a father, a proud member of the Western family. And with any luck, and a little convincing of the wife, maybe a student again one day.
In the turmoil of recent weeks on this campus, sometimes, we forget why we are here, why we joined a university community in the first place.
Let me tell you, from a guy who just lived it, it’s amazing what we get away with every day.
Jason Winders, editorial services associate director, serves as editor of the Western News. Contact him at jwinder2@uwo.ca.