I’m hoping to go back to school – or something like that. I am applying to become a Licenced Lay Minister in my church and, should I be successful, must do a Diploma in Theology, and I’m scared.

Deep Breath. No – I’m still scared.

The last time I had to write an essay – a proper essay, with footnotes and references and everything – was forty years ago. I’m quite frankly terrified.

“Don’t worry,” say various friends who are already Priests or in some kind of ministry themselves, “There’s lots of support.”

Well, support is all very well, but what if I’m totally hopeless? What if my brain just won’t work anymore? When I think about it, I’m almost tempted to give up right now.

I remember the last time I got on a horse. I hadn’t ridden for almost thirty years but naively thought it would be just like getting back on a bicycle. It wasn’t. What’s more, my horse decided to buck me off and I ended up smashing my ankle and being in plaster for six weeks.

I don’t think that academia will land me on the sofa for a month, unable to move, but it might just paralyse me.

In some ways, going back to something you were quite good at once upon a time, is scarier than attempting something new. After all, you have a lot to live up to. Those old grades mean nothing now, yet they hang over me. If I don’t do well this time around, the shame will be much greater than if I don’t do well at something I’ve never tried before. After all, with something new, I’m entering at the ground floor. With something old, I feel as if I should enter at the floor I left from (in my case, the fifth floor of the Library at the University of Hull).

I realise that this thinking is nonsensical. I wouldn’t expect anyone else to do that. I would expect them to be rusty and to need to learn again what they had forgotten. But I suppose I would also expect them to get up to speed relatively quickly. After all, it must be easier to learn something again; the old synapses must surely retain the information somewhere. I’m just afraid they don’t.

What do you think? Have you ever taken up something again after a long break? My aunt took up playing the piano again at eighty, something of which I’m in total awe! Perhaps you have done something similar, although possibly at a younger age. Please let me know how you got on – I could do with some encouragement – or perhaps just a dose of reality.

Mary

A Moodscope member