(orig published Wednesday, April 7, 2010)
My wife Adrienne is good at making plans. I am not. This has worked out well for both of us, mostly. I spent most of 1979 transitioning from 14 to 15 years old. While I was going everywhere on my bicycle and learning how to shave with a razor, she was creating her life plan: Have children when young, then go back to school and get advanced degrees, ending up teaching college as a tenured professor. By 2006, the children were living independent lives and she had her Master's Degree. It was time. After much searching, she was accepted into the new Gerontology PhD program at Miami University, my alma mater.
Now was the hard part. Miami University was nearly a thousand miles away from our home in Shoreham, Vermont. And Adrienne had certain conditions she wanted fulfilled before starting the last leg of her journey: to not have to work full-time while studying, to live near her school, not be a long-distance learner, and to have me with her. These were big, scary conditions but I had always had complete faith in her. When she told me she wanted me to come with her, I said, "Sure."
