Dropping out of high school is not something I run around advertising that I did. But I did it – three times. I guess I had to practice it a lot until I got good enough at it that it finally stuck. The sheer and utter stupidity of it! I look back now and I’m so disappointed in myself – but seeing Memory #50, in some ways, it adds up. The troubled girl I was, the mess in my head, with the lack of mental health help – inevitable is the word that comes to mind.

It was 1993 when I walked away from high school ‘for good’. I was smart, but it was still a time when many girls acted dumb, and I excelled at that. Boys (at least the ones I knew and attracted) did not like their women too smart so I played the dumb girl well, until I lost patience, and moved on. I moved right on to the city and a different life. All the people I once knew behind me and a whole new world ahead of me. A series of menial jobs ahead, I did them well, moved up to a manager’s position at 21, and settled into a career managing a warehouse.

As it goes with life, I grew restless and bored and needed more. My boyfriend (now husband) was smart and had a good career (a real one) and didn’t like the dumb girl. While I am not sure he expected the monster I became, I took some night classes in interior design, and a passion was struck. After a particularly difficult few weeks at work and a serious disagreement with my manager, I applied to a local technical college for a year-long upgrading program.

I was accepted almost immediately. The problem? I hadn’t even run it past my boyfriend and we lived together. Oops. I would have to quit my job in order to enroll in the program as it was an intense learning experience. I had no funding and while he worked, I had always worked too. Was he prepared to support me? All questions I had not even thought of because I was jumping in, feet first, no fear, no second thoughts, no regret. It did not once occur to me that I would not succeed nor was I frightened at the intensity of the course load or the rigours of the academic programing. I did remedial programming in high school, except for English – that was academic as it was the only place I felt strong enough to excel. The program I’d just enrolled in was all academic – math, the three sciences, business communications, all wrapped up in a tidy nine-month program! Say what?!

I accepted the position in the program, quit my job, sold my car (to pay for the course), and stepped off the (proverbial) diving board into the deep. Hoping my relationship would endure, I dove in, headfirst, with absolutely no idea what to expect. I knew it would be hard. I turned twenty-six that summer and knew it had to be now!

A few days before, I had to learn how to get to the school – by city transit. Armed with my bus pass, I went to get on the bus. Boy did I – going the wrong way. My first lesson in “some bus drivers are not all that helpful”. Eventually, I got where I needed to go and home again, and I even figured out how to read the complicated paper schedules they used to post at the bus stops (this was back in the days before cell phone apps). Again, it never occurred to me that I could not do it.

Whether it was an affect of youth, frustration with a dead-end job, or the alignment of the stars, I do not know, but I knew, without doubt, that I would succeed in my return to school. The first day, I packed everything they’d told me I’d need and ventured off to the campus. There was no turning back. It was the start of the rest of my life, and I immersed myself fully in what I was doing.

I finished the year at the top of my class. Earning an overall average of 98%, I won a scholarship and a bursary for the upcoming year (I was going into an interior design technology program), and I’d earned enough ‘credits’ to get my high school equivalency diploma, which I applied for once I completed my design diploma two years later. I threw myself into my studies 1000%, as my family can attest to. For three years, I was a ghost to them. My life was school and studying, I hardly came up for air!

Being fearless is on my 50×50 countdown list. I was fearless when I did this in 2000. I risked so much to do this and while it caused significant stress to my relationship, my husband knows it was the best decision I ever made (on a whim). It changed my life and our lives so much – for all the right reasons. I never regretted the choices I made. It was hard. It was stressful. It was chaotic. It was incredibly fun. To step off that cliff and fall was exhilarating and as my kiddo grows up and the latter half of my life opens, I want to grab my life and rattle it’s cage!

It is time to shake life up again and see about stepping off another cliff and see just where I fall…