You guys are going to be PROUD of me.

After 5 years of putting it off, I finally enrolled back into college, yesterday.As I stood in the parking lot of the community college, putting my parking decal in my back window, I couldn't help but beam with pride. I see my new college ID and I'm just giddy about it. I went to college before, but it never meant as much to me then as it does now.

 See, I'd graduated high shcool when I was 17, and as mature as I was then, it still wasn't enough to prepare me for college. I flaked out, dropped classes, and realized that it was too much for me then. In a way, that was a good thing, because I have come to realize that your transcript is pretty much engraved in stone. I got out while I still had a 4.0.

So, I've spent the past few years working dead end jobs, doing home health care, roofing, working in a lumber mill, working for a magazine company, and travelling around. As you know, that travelling has brought me to Oklahoma City, where I have decided to plant some roots for a while. It's close enough to my parents that if they need me, I'm only a couple hours away. But I still get the space I need.

And as I sit here this morning and take inventory on all the things I've achieved and failed at, I realize that my overwhelming number of failures are not because I wasn't good enough; it was because I never tried. I've been a quitter, and at the risk of sounding cliche`, being a quitter is so much worse than being a loser.

When things didn't go my way for the Military, I just gave up on it. I threw in the towel and decided that I wasn't good enough, I'd never be the Sailor my brother was, and I was simply a disappointment and shame. I've started businesses that I didn't even bother running because I "just knew that they wouldnt pick up. When the classes in school were too hard, I just dropped them, rather than seeking tutoring, or asking for any help.

I mean it's just so much easier to quit. Am I wrong?

I've dropped out of countless competitions because I didn't want to feel that stab in the chest when I don't hear that I won. Manuscripts sit in folders that never were sent. Scholarship applications were never filled out. Vocal Auditions were never done.

 And so, Desiree has created a safe little bubble where there are no challenges, no disappointments, no winning or losing, and no accomplishments. It's safe here, where much like communism, everything is levelled out and made fair so not to hurt anyone's feelings.

But yesterday, I realized that unchallenged is NOT how I want to live my life. I want to do things and learn my lessons first hand. I can't "bloom where I'm planted", like a sister once told me, for fear that I would get discouraged if I tried and failed. I wanted to be a doctor once, and I feel as if I gave up on that dream.

Today, though- I'm thnking differently. I'm an intelligent person and I've got so much talent. G-d didn't put it in me just to be wasted. I may not be a doctor one day, you know? But I've got the desire to help others, and if it's not in the form of a doctor, I know that if I try hard enough there has to be some way to utilize what I have.

So I've decided that I want to double major within the next 2 years.. I'm going to get my Paramedic Associate Degree and my Associates of Science in Psychology. That way in 2 years I'm doing something that I'm really passionate about. Then I can work towards my double batchelors in Psychology and ... well I don't know yet. I've got alot of time to figure it out.

What I do know is that I'm not quitting this time. Win or lose, I'm going through with it.

-Des