I'm a Student Again

Reinvention 101

So here’s something I didn’t see coming: I’m a student again.

Yep. Backpack, class schedule, ID card with an unflattering photo—the whole bit.

One of the reasons I left Santa Cruz was to put some distance between myself and the beautiful mess I’d been marinating in for years. The job loss, the breakup, the noise (literal and metaphorical)—I didn’t just want out. I wanted off the map. I needed something new to orbit around.

So I enrolled in the Outdoor Recreation Leadership program at Feather River College here in Quincy. That’s right: leadership, as in leading other people. Outdoors, no less. Nature, apparently, is going to be my new professor. I’ve got syllabi and hiking boots.

It’s part therapy, part curiosity, part midlife shake-up.

And honestly? It feels kind of great. Strange, humbling, exciting… but great. Like hitting the reset button and realizing it actually does something.

We’ll see where it goes. I might end up in a tent giving motivational talks to marmots. Or I might just learn how to tie better knots—in my ropes and in my life.

Either way, I’m in.