A Little Too Much About Me

 

I was born in Baltimore and lived in D.C. and Wheaton before relocating to the West Coast as a young adult.  My parents grew up poor and still acquired college educations.  My mother became a nurse after I left kindergarten, and my father was a social services executive, having earned an Economics degree from Howard and done some post-grad work at Johns Hopkins. My parents ultimately raised me in what was then the upper middle class in an ethnically and nationally diverse area known at the time for good public schools.

I’ve never heard it expressed but upwardly mobile people often belong only superficially to any community, as elders are often outliers who escaped from something they felt it best to leave behind and kept leaving behind, loosening tethers that would never be reestablished in their new class.  This is how something like educational attainment - usually thought of only in the most glowing terms - can become divisive and isolating.

Education surely opened important material opportunities for my parents – and for me and my children by extension - but even in an environment where most of my parents’ friends had professions and most of my friends were college bound, it didn’t work out in my case.  For many years, I shouldered much of the blame for not having my head in the right place but now I think that I was also raised in an atmosphere where I had already seen much of what was behind those doors that proved so alluring to my parents, and the sense of wonder wasn’t there for me.  It was more like watching sausage being made.  You can sweep a lot of problems under the rug of achievement.  Confused and unhappy, I dropped out of college before beginning my senior year. Over forty years later, I have no regrets about that decision, even though I was not particularly mature when I made it.  Rather, I was frustrated, emotionally unsupported, poorly mentored and didn't have sufficient grit to recover or separate the hype from the opportunity.

My teachers up to college seemed to want to teach and seemed to actually want to teach me.  In contrast, college was the first time I experienced a level of both racism and self-doubt I was unprepared to handle.  It is no secret that the previous generation was tough, so neither my opinion nor my injuries were important – they didn’t get to whine.  

This isn't to diminish any bad karma of my own making - my attitude was instrumental in my failed first marriage and I sometimes wonder how I was able not only to keep my jobs but leave them of my own volition.  Yet, in spite of righting myself to craft a deliberate life, travel the world on my own dime, raise two successful men on my own and finally be able to purchase my homes, I was fifty before my father stopped speaking to me in a manner that made it clear that without a degree, I had somehow managed to be an only child and still not the favorite.  My membership in Mensa did not prompt him to soften his view of my inadequacy although he worked tirelessly to earn my friendship in his last years of life.  

What about my career as a high school graduate?  Eventually, my level of literacy led to lucrative work that increased my level of literacy and experiences that put me in touch with better thinkers from many walks of life instead of one. 

As the years marched on, I discovered what was left in the day for me.  In one of the Universe’s strange twists, being a perpetual outsider had allowed me more time to think and more room to be. 

So, while my disconnection had been very costly, very painful, and very lonely, I have no regrets about who I have become.  My children and grandchildren afford me a great deal of celebration; my second marriage is an oasis of peace in a world going to pieces.  My neighbors are friendly and social media has allowed me to maintain relationships with far-away friends.  A continent away from my granddaughters, I love my current volunteer service working with children.

A once avid writer, I did not become an author of note, but you are nonetheless reading this.  

At the end of the day, I have made peace with the past and am happy with my place in the world.