Back to the future

WHAT with travelling to three of the four continents, founding successful publishing house, opting out, or so I thought, and moving to the West of Ireland, then, going through a rigorous process to gain access to Junior Freshman (sic) year in history and sociology at Trinity, I think serious self editing would have to be achieved for me to write about what I have done since sitting my Leaving Cert.

You may wonder how someone just about to enter her first year at university could possibly have done so much in what you might assume is such a short space of time, but give a moment's thought to the almost forgotten and, for me, aptly described "mature student", for such am I.

Since knowing, slightly ahead of my fellow students, that a college place was to be mine, and after the initial exhilaration and delight at having got this far, I allowed the reality of what I was about to begin to enter consciousness.

Was I mad at 40 years of age to commit myself to four years of scholastic life? Did I want to go back to Dublin - having left it eight years ago for very good reasons. Could I really discipline myself to the rigours of study?

I spent a lot of time musing over these and other questions, and in all honesty I could not answer any of them definitely. So I didn't. I did as I have always done and made a list of the debits and credits.

I was well versed in this method of calculation having spent several years in business doing exactly the same and nearly always coming down on the debit side.

I was delighted, on this occasion, to find myself with a healthy credit balance. Not the type of credit balance a bank would accept as security, but one that gave me tremendous personal security.

So with this new found hope I headed off to try and extract book lists that were not yet complete, look up old friends in Dublin to announce my imminent return and check out what, if any, spare rooms might be available within the bosom of my family - the family I had successfully shaken off many years ago for what both they and I had thought, was for good.

The city, though changed enormously, has the familiarity of an old home left many years before. Friends are wonderfully welcoming and offer great encouragement and support. It is with a warm heart that I head back to my spiritual home in the west for a short sojourn before packing my transformed briefcase and beginning, what my mother would describe as, my second life.