Dropout

Nonfiction.

Portrait of a dropout as a young man.

I let it slip during a book club meeting. I don't remember what book we'd read or what brought it on, but it had something to do with education and the believability of the plot we discussed. I casually told them I didn't graduate from high school. My close friends and family already knew this, but I'd forgotten I'd hidden it from the rest of the world. I immediately felt a slew of complex feelings: I was proud—look how far I'd come. But I was also filled with shame. And anger; people let me down. I let myself down.

I remember the day I decided to stop going to school. I couldn't keep up. I was sinking. I was sunk. I went home during lunch break and walked up to my parents' bookshelf. I ran my hands over the spines of the books, and I made a commitment to myself to read all of them. Every damn book I could get my hands on. Because I knew that the only way I'd survive this world was to learn independently, at my pace, under my conditions.

Many of you writers and readers grew up devouring books at an early age, but not me. Up to this point, I hadn't read much. In fact, I don't think I'd even read an entire book from front to back. So, I bought a novel called Vampire of the Mists by Christie Golden, and read every word. That book started it all for me.

I went back to the bookstore and purchased Cousin Pons by Balzac. It was a struggle at first, but over time, I became ravenous. 19th-century literature was my jam—Gogol and Flaubert blew my mind; Balzac taught me about human nature before I had the wisdom to know how right he was; Proust introduced me to the power of using all of the senses in storytelling; then came the poets, Baudelaire, Rimbaud—Keats, Blake, Yeats, and TS Elliott. Then, I discovered Vonnegut and Stephen King. I discovered Beowulf and Lust for Life. I discovered shit that most kids were forced to read in high school and I fucking loved it all. I love it all.

Meanwhile, I lied on job applications. I lied on other types of applications (can’t confess here.) I lied, and I lied, and I lied. My life is built on a lie. A good lie. A lie that kept me fed. Kept a roof over my head.

Dropout: A badge of honor. An albatross.

So, that day when I let it slip, I laughed along.

“Yes, I do play it off well. No, I don’t regret it.”

I went to the restroom and cried. That evening, I read Hunger by Knut Hamsun.