33 (2008)

 

At the grand old age of thirty three I was going back to school.

I had packed my school bag, grabbed my school lunch, doffed my school cap and swung my satchel over my arm as I headed off to my first day at school, remembering, of course, to take an apple for the teacher.

Only, in reality, my school bag was a brief case, my school lunch was a few pounds in my wallet, my school cap imaginary and the only thing I had to offer the lecturer was an innocently scared face and a weak, unknowing smile.

First days are difficult anywhere, but more so when fellow students, ten years junior, mistake you for the lecturer, and hound you with the very same questions that you need answers to. It was like being on Mars. All the others spoke a common language - the language of youth, and I was without an interpreter. No babel-fish were there to assist me, no inter-galactic communicator/translator to blend me effortlessly into to the crowd. I and a few others were marked, stigmatised, cast aside as ‘mature students’, a totally unnecessary breed apart, quite possibly grossly inferior to the main stream twenty somethings.

It had been a monumentally hard decision to go to university at the age of thirty three. It was, naturally, a time when most sensible people are settled in their marriages, their careers, into paying mortgages, dreaming of not so fast cars and settling down with 2.4 children.

I, on the other hand, was on my second marriage, having to sell my share of a comic-shop business to support my future university life, and having severe doubts that I was doing the right thing. I had the twin demons of Casper the good ghost on one shoulder and Lil hot stuff on the other, each arguing a very plausible case.

After much deliberation, heart ache and soul exploring I had eventually driven to the university, taken the entrance exam and was left with a very hollow feeling, If I failed the exam – then what, and if I passed the exam what happens next. It was a time of indecision, a time when to look into a black obsidian scrying mirror (for divination of the future) would only have brought reflections of the present. A time when there was little solace to be garnered from the brightly coloured cards of the Tarot.

I was, once again, at an awkward age. Though, in truth, it seemed that all my ages were awkward. This time, however, I was the requisite ‘over twenty five’, not in possession of the same number of ‘A’levels that my juniors needed to gain a place at university, and therefore eligible for an entrance exam. Eventually I sat the gruelling three hour exam, and was later shocked, and not a little delighted when a letter came stating that I was offered a place studying sociology (hons).

It hadn’t been long since and my hugely enthusiastic partner and I had set up the comic-shop in town. It was a horrendous decision to have to make. Should I just forget about my education and be satisfied with my lot, get on with the comic-shop and settle to a life knowing more about Batman and The Shadow than about philosophy, politics, economic and sociology, or throw it all away and take a huge gamble on three long years at university. Eventually I chose the latter.

Having the comic-shop had been a lifelong dream, and it was difficult to give up that dream, but, there again, going to university was also a dream of mine and, as is frequently said, we must all move on, and move on I did. I put Spiderman, Batman, Superman, The Torch and sundry other superheroes (and villains) behind me and opened my arms and mind to Plato, Aristotle, Kant and Martin Heidegger. My second and third university years were subsequently devoted to philosophy after a change of heart after year one of sociology.

I was not without doubts however. From the moment that the university offer letter arrived, right until I had cleared my final exams – three years later, I was convinced that the university authorities had sent the letter, and the offer, to the wrong person.

I was besieged with doubts. It was hard enough having to complete with students ten years younger without also having the thought of being discovered, and politely ejected from the university, at any second, hanging over me like a veritable sword of Damocles .

In that first year I had not only to learn the various subjects – nearly failing in economics, but also had to learn how to write. It had been a very long time since college essays, some seventeen years in fact, and although I had attended vocational graphic design school in the interim, I had written no essays as it was an entirely practical course. I was beset with all kinds of insecurities due to my age and lack of preparation.

Within that one year of being thirty three, which seemed as though it might go on forever, I had resigned from a job as Planning Assistant with the local council Planning department, started a comic-shop which opened on July 4th, took and passed the entrance exam to university and, in the October, began the epic adventure of university life.

Talk about a year of living dangerously. In the following January, with ice and snow blocking most of the main roads around town, my hairy little daughter was born and some weeks later my wife was rushed into hospital with a dangerously low blood pressure, due to internal bleeding. I had found her pale, collapsed in the bathroom, oozing blood and, as it turned out, barely minutes to live. Ambulance men rushed my wife to hospital. I was left to attend to a child of a few weeks.

My wife survived, our daughter survived, I survived university but that is one year I shall never forget.

I was 34 in the February.