College only makes sense economically if you have a plan.

If you’re a naive, idealistic, scatterbrained, autistic, traumatized, brainiac redneck raised into terrible character by a spineless single parent who drove off the good one, like I was, then your best bet after high school is some entry level job, heath insurance, and therapy for a few years.

I had an emotional system the equivalent of a broken pair of legs. I basically signed up for a walking journey with broken legs, because (a) I had no conception of what the “legs” were that carry a person through college successfully, and (b) I had no idea they could be broken, and (c) I had no idea mine were broken.

I was like “sweet! big journey!” and the kids from healthier backgrounds and I got along fine, and they got their shit done and I mostly tore my hair out and cried and took super long walks and experimented with drugs. I had been led to believe that the journey through life was like driving through a country. I didn’t realize that traveling in this journey meant transforming the self. I had no conception of self transformation as an aspect of life, of directed growth, of evolving consciously. All I had was this feeling that life was like a river and I was kayaking down it seeing new stuff.

I don’t really know how to say what the lesson was. It was the most expensive lesson I ever learned, because not only did it cost me a huge amount of money, it also cost me about twenty years of my life.