How Time Changes Everything

I finally got my diploma in the mail, making it official: I am a college graduate. It feels good, though I have been done since December some late paperwork postponed the actual piece of paper from reaching me until now, but that is not the point. The point of this is I am done and I have the documentation to prove it.

It is now setting in that I am an educated man. I guarantee if we were to hop into Bill and Ted's phone booth and take a journey back ten years ago to a small, scummy town called Hopatcong and asked people "where will Dan Perrucci be in ten years?" I can tell you that there would maybe be one or two people who would have thought I would be a college graduate. They all had this impression of me that actually wasn’t who I was, or who I am; they thought I was a stupid, angry, asshole. Well they were right on two of three things: I was an angry asshole (now I am more of just an asshole).

I was never stupid, though I can understand why people thought that: I got bad grades, but in reality I have always been smart. I just never wanted to show it, I never felt like applying myself. School was boring and I was surrounded by people I hated and wanted to slam all their heads in the lockers. (Please note that if I went to high school with you and you are taking the time to read this, I most likely didn't want to bring physical harm upon you . . . but I probably really did). Seriously, if I continued on the path I was on I would probably be in jail or some other asinine shit.

I changed, one day I realized where my anger problem was going to take me and it wasn't a place I wanted to be. I was close, but fate led me out of the situation that anger had put me into which brought about a new me. I only regret that I didn't get this brutal lesson sooner, but regrets are like a man's nipples: pointless.

Regardless of when I learned the lesson it was learned and with the support of friends and family I made it out of the darkness and moved on with life. Will this come back to haunt me at some point in the future? Maybe, but it also made me into the man I am today, which, though flawed in many ways, is a person of great character and talent.

Well that sounds conceited as all hell.

Back to what I was saying:

I look at what happened that day as a blessing in disguise, I found out how much the people around me care about me and made me realize how fucking stupid and childish I was. I'm not saying this time was easy and I walked through it without fear, on the contrary, I was terrified. I woke up and replayed what happened in my head thinking of all the things that I could have done to prevent it, but it didn't change the fact that it happened. I cried at times, I tried to laugh at other times, but I was always afraid.

Anyway that is the past, this is the now: I am a college graduate. It feels good, I know I still have to find a job, but I have a nice piece of paper in my hands that ten years ago I, and the people who knew me then, would have never thought I would get. This is my proudest accomplishment, the first of many things I want to prove to myself and the world that I can do.