Opinion | I’m So Excited for 40th Grade

I’m not the only one I know with plans to mix things up this fall. There’s something about this time of year, even this far removed from our student days, that signals a fresh start. One of my friends — she’d be in 42nd grade now — is taking the new-school-year-new-me concept literally, starting classes at the same time as her elementary-schoolers, step one of a plan to earn her master’s degree and change careers. A friend in 39th grade is finally starting therapy, committed to figuring out whether it’s time to end a relationship that doesn’t seem to be working for her anymore.

Change doesn’t have to be permanent, a lesson I learned with some of my youthful back-to-school reinventions. When I returned to college for my sophomore year, I decided to rebrand myself as a smoker. I liked having a reason to hang out at the periphery of parties, leaning against a doorway, blowing smoke out the side of my mouth. I enjoyed the quick flash of attention I got when I flicked open a lighter. I’m glad I gave it up eventually, but I look back on this ill-advised affectation fondly when I find myself hesitating to try new things. I can always try on a new habit, and if I don’t like it, drop it. Growth is about experimenting as much as it’s about plowing forward.

As a parent, I see my kids reinventing themselves every school year. They’ve gone through their Lego phases, their sporty phases, their drama phases, their communicating-only-via-eyerolls phases. Yet I can see whole stretches of their childhoods where I coasted by in the same phase for years, my routine on caregiving autopilot — wake people up, feed people, drive people, get a little work done, start driving people again, feed people again, put people to bed. Supporting them as they grow into the people they’re becoming takes so much time and energy that unless I actively focus on my own evolution, I can forget that I’m still becoming someone, too.

Recently, I attended a local function for alumni and current students of my alma mater. As one student told me all about how she was designing her own major within the independent study program, I felt a spark of recognition. Designing my own curriculum! Yes, that’s what I want to do. In 40th grade, I will write my own syllabus. I will read books I might normally overlook and listen to people who know things I don’t and go places I haven’t been, because by this time next year, I want to have grown — and not in shoe size.