You'll have to forgive me for writing about my past again, but the more I reflect on where I am right now, and where I'm headed soon, the more I'm brought back to all the years and experiences that brought me here.
When I was in 8th grade, high school was a faraway, scary place. I'd never enjoyed the unknown growing up, mostly because it meant having to make new friends, and face the dreaded fear of lunch-period seating. Man, that was the absolute worst! I was always a smart kid, friendly and kind, but I was also easily picked on because I was shy.
When I started 9th grade at Chaminade High School in Mineola, New York, everything seemed great at first. Two of my best friends from elementary school were free the same lunch period as I was, which meant we were able to have a table together, along with a new best friend we all met that year. It was also an all-boys high school, which of course was supposed to take away certain distractions, making it easier to focus on schoolwork. When you're realizing you really, really like guys though, it has the opposite effect.
Not only were my eyes darting all over the place a bit too frequently, the bullies had a field day with me too. One kid in particular sat right next to me in Earth Science class, and seemed to love tormenting me daily. It started off just in class, but then he'd see me in the hallway, and do it there too. And his buddies who overheard him began doing it even when he wasn't around.
Bullying was nothing new to me, as I had bullies in grade school too, and I can't just blame bullies or hot guys for my failing out of high school (not even when they're the same people!). Although...I do have one more excuse to throw out there. At my school, if you got below 75, you failed the class. I got a 74 in two classes, and in a third pass/fail course, the teacher failed me.
Okay, the excuses part is over now!
I failed out of my high school because I didn't work hard enough. I struggled with memorization and the weight of my workload, and I just couldn't do it anymore. I struggled, I messed up, I failed. I'd always been a good student, but in my first year of high school, I failed to reach the levels necessary to remain a student there. It's just that simple.
Being branded a failure at age 15 was more difficult than I can even put into words. Even older kids from my hometown who'd watched me get bullied or saw I was taking extra-help classes were shocked to hear I failed out. Everyone just figured I was handling things well, doing what every other kid my age was doing their freshman year at Chaminade. I was supposed to just adapt, to get used to it all, to be strong, even if I didn't want to be.
As I look back on that year, now part of my past, I'm grateful for the many ways it transformed me for the better. I don't know whether or not my life would have continued the same way as it did had I not failed out, but I do know that failing taught me about what failure really is.
There are three powerful truths I've learned:
1) Failure is never permanent, only temporary.
2) Failure is not a scar on your life, only a bruise you learn from.
3) Failure is not a definition of your life, only an adjective with an expiration date.
The failures of my past are many. Failing out of my first high school was a big one, not least of all because it happened when I was only 15 years old, and just beginning to discover myself. I was still a kid, and it hurt me deeply. Has it changed who I am now at 39 years old? Yes. Absolutely! It's made me stronger, and it's made me wiser. It's made me fail less often, and it's helped me understand my failures as parts of my immediate past, and not causes on my future.
Failure is just a temporary fact we will all suffer many times in life. It's not a summary of who we really are. The real me never failed those classes or got thrown out of my first high school. The real me is the soul writing you today, the guy reminding himself--and you--that once you've reached the bottom of failure's pit, the ladder of success is already waiting for you to climb right back up again.
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