So I woke up today a lot later than I intended to. I meant to head down to Red Emma's hours before my shift was supposed to start and work on writing physics solutions until it was time for me to hop behind the bar. I meant to get a lot of work done during my shift as well, so that I didn't have to stay up all night tonight getting solutions written for the Physics 121 students who are, no doubt, eagerly awaiting them. Instead, I overslept, dragged my feet making lunch, and ended up reorganizing my room for several hours, during which I lost track of time and ended up running late for my shift at Emma's. And now I'm gonna be up all night writing solutions, and I might not finish them by my deadline, noon tomorrow.
C'est la vie.
I dropped out of school a few weeks ago. Or 'took some time off,' depending on your preference. People seem to be upset by the former and reassured by the latter. My scholarship is going to be deferred until Fall 2010, but the truth is, I don't plan on going back to school then. I'm not sure when or how I plan on going back, but I suppose that someday I will.
The too-smart rhetoric has dominated the last few years of my life. I am too smart to take time off. I am too smart to be an activist. I am too smart to figure out who I am. I am too smart to 'waste' my time reading novels and writing books no one will ever read. The feminist movement has sought to expand women's options to include the technical sciences, and in doing so has shut me into a box. I can do math, therefore I must. I am smart, therefore I must achieve their ends. I must become a statistic, yet another minute percentage of the engineering field that is female.
I am not apologetic for my decision to be something greater than a number.
The fear of dropping out (aka failure), has been instilled in most of us for much of our lives. It was generally not expected that I would go to college, so I always saw college as a way out, a fuck-you to the circumstances of my childhood that would have me accomplish nothing more than self-sustaining endeavors until it was time to reproduce. I knew that college would propel me forward into a new life that was truly my own. And in fact, it did just that. In many ways college has served its purpose. It has, as I suggested earlier, shown me exactly what higher education is not. College has not been, for me, a place to find myself. It has been a place to simmer and grow restless. It has been a place to develop and deepen the aspects of myself that I was already aware of. I am infinitely grateful for the staff and administrators at UMBC who mentored me, who pointed out the windows of college life and said, "look, there is a place you could be someday." There are things I have learned in my time at UMBC that are now an integral part of who I am, and I humbly thank all of those who have been patient enough to teach me.
But the end of this era is not a failure. On the contrary, it is perhaps one of my life's greatest victories thus far. Victory extracted from beneath the surface defeat strikes again, this time much brighter.
I am sure people feel disappointed about me dropping out. Certainly many a generation above me: staff, professors, parents, and others; but also my peers. But I am not disappointed, and others should not be disappointed on my behalf. What some might see as a failure to reach potential is really the realization of the role that I have to play in this world. What some might see as a stumbling block, I see as the gift of flight. I am unbounded. I am finally free. The journey has just begun.
People keep asking me what I am doing next, and the answer is a complex ball of energy whose direction is difficult to define. I am not sitting around twiddling my thumbs and watching TV while my former classmates accomplish credits and grade point averages. I am not wasting away, my potential as an individual dwindling before my eyes as I sink beneath the privilege level I once held.
Suddenly my life is full of endless possibilities. I have been intellectually restless for a long time, and for the first time in many years I am finally able to let myself learn, to let myself participate in age-old conversations in disciplines relevant to my interests. For the first time in my life I can feel the edges of what I want to do with my life in the dark mass of society that surrounds me. Now my life is going somewhere. Now I am on my way to being the person I have always wanted to be. Now I am set forward on my path towards changing the world.
It is difficult to describe the explosion of fervor that has consumed me over these last few weeks. It is impossible to share the excitement of what has been brewing deep inside me. I have truly felt this way few times before in my life, and it has always preceded a great era of growth. It is time for me to move forward with my life once more. It is time for me to stop being brilliant in a classroom and start enacting real change. It is time for me to stop preparing for my future and travel into it instead.
I didn't drop out of something. I leaped onto a moving train. I will miss what I left behind but I can't keep waiting around just because the townsfolk say that a faster train is coming later. If this one doesn't go as far as I want, there will be other trains. There will always be trains, but I've been craving the wind on my face, and stagnancy just doesn't do me well.
I am thrilled with my new-found ability to engage. I am bursting with ideas. And now that I have taken a few weeks to tie my shoes and flex my muscles, I am ready to run.
But for the first time in my life I will have something to look back on fondly. And that added thought is enough to leave me feeling better than I ever have.
