I have a reputation in my family (okay, okay, with my dad) for flip flopping more than John Kerry.

In some ways this is true–I had my sights on an east coast college, then in the next split second I made an irreversible early decision application to my alma mater. I had a moving truck packed in front of our sold San Antonio home ready to drop everything off in downtown Boston, then in the next two days, I had signed another lease for an urban high rise in downtown Austin. These were momentous decisions in those moments, but now they’re fairly inconsequential.

There are many things I’ve never wavered on, however. Having a baby, living as simple a life as we can, and an adamant refusal to wear high heels are just some of those things.

You can hear the next flop coming, can’t you?

Not too long ago I wrote about my decision to return to school. I did all the paper work and was accepted into a Classics program. I had time to evaluate what I was getting myself into. There is tremendous value in learning for its own sake, and I’m an ardent supporter of retaining as much arcane knowledge as I can. It’s a pleasure, and I do it as a way of life in or out of an academic program.

But.

I started feeling a bit heartsick about leaving Hannah for hours each week for a program that may or may not lead to anything significant.

I began exploring other options. The itch to go back to school was too strong, so I knew I had to do something.

This is the flop.

I decided to quickly apply for a Masters in Counseling. I scrambled everything together, and got my letters of recommendation in just in time. It’s about as far as I can be from the Classics program, but it’s the right thing for me, right now, and I begin in January.

It’s a two year program with a research focus that can lead into doctoral studies. I’m considering researching the many ways immigrants and refugees assimilate and make themselves at home in new countries. This calls to me, and allows me to answer the part of me crying out to be a public servant. It may seem ridiculous, but I actually felt guilty for considering something like the Classics–I could have spinned it into something personally meaningful, but I would always have wondered what else I could be doing and who else I could be serving.

I’m going to do the first two years, then evaluate where we are as a family, then I’ll make the next jump, or flop, whatever that may be.

I’m taking a full course load, but for this first semester everything is in the evenings and on the weekend. It’s three nights a week, and I’ll be home in time to snuggle Hannah to sleep, and with any luck, she won’t even notice my Saturday morning absence.

The thought of being a student again lifts me up, and to find a program that clicks so deeply and seems so compatible with our current status is indeed a comfort.