college – the taller eight

Like a lot of kids, I started college the semester after I graduated from high school. And, like many kids, I went to a community college instead of aspiring towards Ivy League life; I didn’t long for the “college life” of dorm rooms and living out of state, massive loans and being away from everything and everyone I’d ever known. I didn’t even know what I wanted to get out of more school… I mostly coasted through high school as it was, and didn’t know what I wanted to be when I “grew up”.

Now, I’m a 37-year-old man. And on my 37th birthday, after having dropped out a few times, I logged in one last time to my final online course. I finished my Associate of Arts degree in English (technically two degrees, also English for Transfer) almost exactly 18 years after I started it.

But why go back at all? Let’s talk about it.

The world’s got pretty weird over the last year and a half or so, hasn’t it?

I wanted to write something before now, but I honestly had no clue where to ever start, and the longer I waited, the more I felt like I had nothing to say. Much like the end of 45’s presidency, every week felt like something new… a new announcement from the CDC, new mask mandates (or lack thereof, goddammit Florida), new virus strains. Being perfectly honest, trying to keep up with reality as it is… it’s exhausting.

And that’s not even taking into account all the regular struggles of humanity since this pandemic began.

But even without a global pandemic that brought the world to its knees,, all the normal and abnormal of 2020 and 2021, this has been some of the most wonderful, painful, satisfying times of my life. And it’s time I shared a little bit.

Hello, internet. It’s been too long since we caught up.