College

With the benefit of hindsight, I probably should have gone to college.

I did not do well in school, though I didn’t do poorly, either. I was an average, unremarkable student. I don’t remember my grades, because I didn’t care much about them then, and I definitely don’t care about them now. I had a lisp when I was very young, and had to go through a lot of speech therapy at school to weed it out of me, which, I think, made me naturally shy and unwilling to put myself out there, or to try very hard. My mother worked during the summers – she’d drop me off at the library in the morning, and I’d spend all day there, by myself, and I thought that was great. But it didn’t encourage a lot of active participation, and active participation is an important factor in learning and education. 

I was better-than-average when it came to English. Reading, writing, and interpreting what I had read were — and remain — some of my strongest skills. I was — and remain  — terrible at the sciences. All of the sciences. Science is a fascinating foreign language I’ll never speak, but, like, say, Esperanto, or snowboarding, or parenting, I can admire from the middle distance. I was middling in mathematics, though as I’ve gotten older, I’ve recognized that I had teachers whose jobs were to coach, and I’ll let myself off the hook a little. I’ve gotten better at algebra and statistics through different jobs over the years, so I don’t think I was unteachable. I know I had poor math teachers. 

The trouble with school started, for me, as a teenager. My family moved from a mid-sized city to a smaller town right around when I hit puberty, which I started early, and I left all of the friends I’d made at a critical point in kid friendships. We moved to a small enough town. Most of the new kids my age who were, say, stable and well-adjusted had been friends for years, and had grown up together. It was small enough that the misfits who were, well, less stable and less well-adjusted all hung together. I made friends, but the friends that I made weren’t grade-A students. By 13 years old, I spent my time with skateboarders, punks, and burnouts; older than I was, and eager to extol the virtues of bad habits. I got in trouble eagerly, early and often, even though my parents did their best to channel me into more productive directions. My schoolwork hit a small and steady decline, as did my grades, as did my progress reports, and while I was never at risk of failing, I was an unremarkable student who finished assignments a day late and fell asleep in class every day because I spent every night climbing out my window. 

At 15, I got a job, working 35-40 hours a week, 6 days a week, at a car dealership. In theory, I was supposed to do homework while working this job — I was answering phones, routing calls, taking messages and tracking down drunk car salesmen while their disinterested customers waited in the lobby. What I actually did at this job, instead of my homework, was read books by the Beats and daydream about hopping trains and traveling and, mostly, thinking about ways to get myself into trouble. I had other hobbies at this time, most of which got me in trouble. I played in bands. I hung out at punk houses. I learned that a 15-year old with mutton chops and extra weight can pass for 21 if he’s got friends who will order for him and the bartender doesn’t check ID. I spent more and more of my time hanging out with people older than me who were either about to finish high school, had already finished high school, or had dropped out. You can imagine what happens next.

At 17, I just stopped going to school. I never went back after the summer. In the last couple weeks before senior year started, I quit my job, packed a couple backpacks, and left home. I moved in with a couple of older guys I knew in the city, and dared my parents to stop me. They didn’t — and they realistically couldn’t. They got me to begrudgingly commit to part-time dropout school, which may have been worse than just taking the GED exam. Dropout school isn’t really intended for people who are average-enough students that want to live irresponsibly, it’s intended for pregnant girls and kids who’ve been in juvenile correctional facilities and seriously at-risk teenagers. There are a lot of kids like this in America, and they need support and education, too. I just wasn’t one of them. I was lazy and impetuous and impatient to do big adult things like… be a dishwasher and pay rent. I sputtered around for years, playing in bands, hanging out in bars, killing brain cells and killing time. 

Eventually, I tired of working manual labor jobs and split shifts and retail, and got a job in a call center. Answering phones in the air conditioning during the summer was a huge improvement over unloading trucks, and at that time, it paid better, too. I got into working in training at this call center, and eventually went to work for the client I was supporting. That was nearly 20 years ago, and I’ve worked, in one capacity or another, in training, ever since, and while it’s not an fulfilling career, it pays the bills, when I’m not getting laid off. 

I do sometimes wonder how my life would’ve been different if I’d have gone to college, because I don’t have much in common with people I’ve worked with. There’s a shared language there that I just can’t quite speak, even though I can understand it — it’s a common life experience amongst my peers and coworkers that I’ve never had. Most of my friends are people who also didn’t go to college, who have worked in the service industry or in labor or as small business owners their whole lives, and in turn, it can be hard for me to communicate about work with them in a way that’s mutually intelligible. Truck drivers don’t write business requirements. Tattooers don’t do Zoom standups. My career has a hard ceiling without an education, and my nose is pressed right up against it, and probably will be for the rest of my life, unless I get into a different field and start over.  

None of this is regret. There are plenty of things I’ve done that I regret, but I’ve seen and done and learned and experienced things that are unusual and exciting for anyone, not just for scholars or dropouts, and there are ways that my career path has made me better at my job. There are many people I encounter in my career, who, frankly, could use a lot more life education than they have received. I have lived — and will continue to live — a life that’s been loud and in technicolor. But my lack of education has absolutely limited my career options, and leaves me without experiences I think I might find valuable now. 

With the benefit of hindsight, I probably should have gone to college.