Learning from Mistakes

I don’t remember anyone ever telling me how important school was. Maybe they did and I just chose to ignore it. Instead, I focused all of my energy on my friends, and “extra-curricular activities” that had nothing to do with academics. I remember thinking I already knew all there was to know about the real world. But, as a teenager, I guess you don’t really know anything. So, I continued to have fun with my friends without thinking of what the future had in store for me. Now here I am at the age of thirty-three and I realize how much easier my life would have been if I listened to the wise words being told to me by my mom, dad, and mostly from my grandmother.
High school should be a time to spread teenage wings, growing up from children into young adulthood. To start preparing for the dreaded “C” word, College. When most kids were shuffling themselves from class to class, taking notes, flipping through pages of boring text books, I was nowhere to be found. Instead I was hanging out in the parking lot. My activities included swapping gossip from other delinquents. Instead of learning the periodic table of elements, I learned the basic chemistry of illicit drug use. When others were learning the miracles of internal combustion, I learned how to scope out unlocked parked cars that allowed me access to “OPP” Other People’s Property. I earned my unofficial degree in General Education by majoring in Street Smarts. However, one can’t write that on a resume.
During this time, my family raised their efforts in trying to encourage me to go back to school. My parents were informed by the truancy department of my 30 day personal leave of school and my mom was being threatened to go to jail for my actions. My mother had had enough and dragged my know-it-all behind back into school following into each room and sitting with me to ensure I actually attended class. She was my faithful but unwilling lunch partner. As upset as I was that she followed me around like an angry