From the beginning of my plans to go back to school, I’ve been intending to go only part-time, almost entirely due to the fact that I’ll be attending classes 500 miles from home. I figured that a full-time schedule would involve entirely too much travel, but in the past couple of weeks the class schedules have been posted and it looks like I could manage a full load after all. The way the schedule is set up, I won’t have to make many more trips down to Uppsala if I add the other classes, but I will have to stay over one night most weeks and two nights at least a few times.

Olof and I have talked quite a bit about it, and we’ve decided I should go for it. I was prepared for him to be a little resistant, but in fact, he was all for it. There are some good reasons for me to do it this way. The biggest, of course, is that if I’m going to do this, I might as well do it and make real headway, rather than dragging it out for who knows how long. Also, the overnights will give me lots of good, uninterrupted working time. And not least, I’ll be able to get larger student loans, which will cover all those flights and hotel rooms.

Olof still has a fair amount of paternity-leave days saved from the little girls, so he’ll be taking those when I’m gone and the kids will still have a full-time parent at home. I think that is probably what this whole plan hinges on — with him home, I won’t feel as sad or guilty about being away from them, and they won’t miss me as much, either. Olof has said that he’s looking forward to it, especially as he’ll have the opportunity to spend a lot of time with Yrsa, something he’s missed out on since going to work in town when she was three months old.

I’m trying not to kid myself; I know it’ll be an adjustment for all of us. Still, I expect it will be less of a shock than when Olof started his new job last spring. In some ways, I think we — or ast least, I — still haven’t fully recovered from that.