Erroneousfunk’s Weblog

So there I was, back at community college, a different one than my mother had worked. I had just left the military and was very excited to be back in my home state. School was going well for me then and my GPA was back up. All of my core classes were about finished and I applied to a state school. It was the one that I had always dreamed about attending when I was in high school. I was accepted in the winter and thought everything was going to be fine.

That is until I realized that school was a hell of a lot harder than I had imagined. Plus, I was a non-traditional student, I was in my late twenties when I first started, and felt out of place. I didn’t have many friends at school, maybe it’s better to say hardly any. All of my friends that I hung out with had long since graduated. And I was just trying to feel my way through like I belonged there.

But for the longest time I didn’t know what the hell I was doing there. I thought college was supposed to be some magical place where your eyes opened up and you started to learn so many new and interesting things. Don’t get me wrong, I learned a lot from all the different courses that I took, but something was missing. I never really figured out what that was exactly.

I tried to join different groups to make new friends, but they weren’t what I was looking for. Plus, I was usually the kid in the back of the class. I feel very uncomfortable talking in front of people. If I wanted to say something that I felt was important in class, my anxiety would swell up and I would have to work up the nerve just to state my point.

And then I would listen to other students and what they had to say, but their conversations were foreign to me. I was older than they were and their concerns weren’t necessarily the same as mine. I felt no connection to them and that made me stay to my own even more. I realize that maybe I should have tried harder to meet new people, but I already had my circle of friends and that was all I really needed. They were my base and were supportive all the way.

Then, came the time that I finally had to deal with the issues that I had been running away from all those years ago. I had some personal issues that weren’t allowing myself to be happy. I didn’t think that I deserved happiness and it kept me from succeeding. I had a fear of success. I had a lot of guilt that kept me from allowing myself personal satisfaction. I was trying to hold myself back. It wasn’t healthy, but it was all that I knew at the time. It was self-destructive.

My grades started to slip and I started losing interest in school. I thought school was supposed to show you the world and how it worked. But I had already been out in the “real world” and saw what it was like.

This class was to show you the arts. I already sought that out. I went to plays on my own, I went to every art museum that I could find and I read all of the classics that time would allow.

That class was supposed to teach you economics. Is that anything like having a ton of bills to pay and you aren’t sure if you can afford your next meal? Hhhmmm, I’ve got books that I need to buy but they’re so expensive. It’s either this book or I get to eat for the next month.

I became disgruntled. What’s this going to do for me anyway? It’s just a piece of paper. It doesn’t define me, it doesn’t describe me as a person. It doesn’t make me any better or any less of a person whether I own a degree or not. I have goals that I want to achieve and I know that it would be much harder to attain them, but I felt I could do it anyway with or without a piece of paper.

It was frustration. It was fear. And I got scared.

I almost did myself in. I almost stopped myself from succeeding. I was never afraid of failure, only success. And it was time to let go.

I finally have. I’ll be graduating soon. And there’s a lot more that I want to do in my life. This is just another step on the way towards my goals. And I can only hope and pray that I’m able to achieve them. But it hasn’t been very easy, and they say anything worth having never is. And they’re right.

And when I finally do walk on stage to grab my diploma, I’ll have tears in my eyes and be the happiest person there.