Confessions of a career student

So here I am, almost 29 years old and still in school. It is the subject of jokes and ridicule from peers, professors, friends and even family. It makes me feel like....well, maybe you should know the history first. In high school, I was never the best student. I had to work hard for everything. The problem was, I didn't always work my hardest. It wasn't until I started this adventure called college that I took school seriously. However, that didn't last too long. I spent a year at community college, and the I transferred to Texas Tech University (WRECK EM!!). Guess what, I was following a woman. I had gotten engaged to a girl I knew in high school. Was it smart? No, but we were kids, how would we have known? I got there, and the relationship went south. With that, so did my participation in school. I lost focus. I forgot why I was there. Heck, originally I was there for reasons other than school. After awhile, the only classes I went to were band and jazz band. I was having a great time. The problem was, that time caught up to me. It was in 2004 that I figured out that I could not afford it anymore. This was a bad time for me. I spent the next two years wandering. I was working and going to various classes, but never really focusing on a degree. Looking back, I am not sure what I wanted in life. I basically avoided growing up. I was in a bad place. At one point, I even thought about taking my own life. I was feeling the pressure to get going again, but I never knew where I wanted to go. I went to the one thing in life that always brought me joy....music. I decided to get back to earning my BM. I was playing music again. I was happy, but I still lacked the focus to look at the end of the road. I was still acting like the same stupid kid. Finally, I don't know what clicked, but I grew up. I started to work hard again. I started to care about my classes and how well I did. However, the damage was done. Because of my mistakes, I was destined to be a career student. I had to make up for everything I did wrong. Everybody would say "Don't dwell on the past. Don't worry about your mistakes." But somehow, my mistakes would always come back to bite me. They still do. Today, I am dealing with these mistakes. I deal with them with every "old man" joke. Every "haven't you graduated?" feels like I am getting kicked in the gut. I want to scream, "DON'T YOU THINK I WANT TO GRADUATE?" So, here I am. I made my choices and I now have to live with the consequences. Actually, I have been living with the consequences, but this semester is the hardest. I seem to get more and more comments from people. There are events that I won't go to and people I won't hang out with because I don't want to have to explain myself. I find myself looking towards graduation thinking "will all of this end?, or will I still deal with this crap?" Sure I make jokes, but I think I do that as a defense mechanism. If I make the joke first, then they can't get to me. I'm not sure where the logic is, but that's what it is. It's odd though, because if I hadn't made those mistakes, then I would have never met the people I met and I would have never met my wife. So, in a way, I am glad I made those mistakes. It is still no fun to deal with them though. So, what is the point of this post. I guess I just can't sleep and I need to get this off of my chest. Maybe this is my way of telling people to back off. I don't know. It is something that has been on my mind for awhile now and it does feel good to get it out. I just have to keep going. I am almost there (or at least it feels closer).