Do I Hafta Go To School?

My horse, Cruz, is learning manners, the Parelli Natural Horse-Man-Ship way. Sounds cool, doesn't it?Well, it is cool. He has been under daily training for three months. And it has come to pass that I, too, must learn what he knows. So that I know how to lead him, manage him, give him direction. So that our future together is better than our past.

But, I have learned something new about myself. I have become intolerant, and resistant, even afraid of, certain learning scenarios. I don't want to drive for a half hour, ride slowly in an arena for an hour and try to follow instructions from someone else. No matter how much I like the idea of learning, no matter how much I want to know this stuff, I hate doing it. I have become someone who wants to stay in a comfort zone.

I wonder if it is because I spent three and a half years being worked to death, scared to death, studying like hell, attending classes and learning nursing skills under the strict scrutiny of evil instructors, living in another town from my husband and children, spending twelve to twenty hours a day trying to become a nurse. I turned fifty years old in nursing school. Then, I was ejected into the profession of nursing where I was sucked in, chewed up, spit out and ground down trying to become good enough to be respected and regarded. Even now, I regularly come face to face with self doubt and second guessing. It gets pounded into your head in nursing school.

I, in some ways, regret not having waited until the kids left home to go back to school. I feel like I missed so much of their lives in high school. I did take my eldest, Mack, to the town where I went to nursing school, and he completed his Associates Degree there. We were roommates in college, we tell people.

But, I think a direct result of all of this late-in-life learning, being micromanaged, being exhausted and overworked, is that I have little tolerance for any but short and sweet lessons or classes. I find myself judiciously avoiding being tied down to a classroom, being lectured at, being watched and judged, that is, feeling like I did in nursing school.

We nursing students joke that nursing educators tear you down and rebuild you in their own image. We cried, ranted, got drunk, laughed until we cried or threw up. We all walked around like zombies. We lost or gained weight, let our hair, nails and skin go to hell, screwed up relationships, got sick and had no time to get better, so we got worse. We all did, men, women, young and older. I would watch the young students drag themselves in to class, exhausted and ill and discouraged and scared of failure. And, I thought, if that is how hard this is on someone half my age, what the hell am I doing here?

Anyway, that is my hypothesis of why I resist classes, restrictions on my time and movement, and ongoing lessons and learning. Please understand that I love to learn; I consider myself somewhat of a renaissance woman, having learned and succeeded in four diverse consecutive careers areas, each lasting a decade. I have had to do things I don't want to do, many times. But, I think I am all done being stressed by learning or restrictions.

I want things to be easy now. I want to be left alone more. I want to feel accomplished and proficient. I want to decide my activities and the amount of time or energy to invest and where to invest it. I am looking for Life's Easy Button. Or maybe just an extended vacation where I can catch up on my sleep.