While I aced kindergarten, I almost failed the first grade.
The difference? I loved my kindergarten teacher. And I hated my first-grade teacher.
After attending a parent-teacher night with the Wicked Witch of Southeast Dallas, my dad sat me down for one of his infamous “talks.” I don’t think it went quite the way he expected.
Dad: “Little man, you’re too smart to fail the first grade.”
Me: “I don’t care. I’m not learning anything from her. If I do well, it looks like she’s doing well. And she’s not. She’s mean and nasty.”
I was an opinionated six-year-old, and I’m sure I’ll be an opinionated sixty-year-old.
When I like and respect a teacher, I’m engaged and eager to learn. When I don’t, I’m one of the most difficult student in the class. It’s been a recurring theme throughout my educational career and has included more than a few memorable face-offs.
Fast forward to my senior year of high school. My dad had died unexpectedly a few months earlier, and my mother and I were having the fight of our lives over what I was going to do after graduation.
I had a job offer in California and had been accepted at both UCLA and USC. I was leaning toward UCLA. There was just one problem: paying for it. I wasn’t eligible for the kind of scholarships I would have needed to afford UCLA, much less USC, and my mother had made it clear that she would only pay for me to attend a university in Texas.
So, long story short, I went to a university less than an hour from home.
I majored in radio, television, and film. I minored in English, with a focus on creative writing. And I took as many art and art history classes as I could squeeze into my schedule.
While I enjoyed my art and writing classes, I didn’t love college.
But I knew it was my parents’ dream for me to earn a degree. So I went. I showed up. I did the work. I went through the paces.
And then I graduated.
My mother was considerably more excited about my Bachelor of Arts than I was. I even walked at graduation mostly because it would make her happy.
The funny thing is, I don’t remember learning much in college that I couldn’t have learned, and in many cases already had learned, on my own.
I’ve always been a self-starter and a self-learner. If I’m interested in something, I go down the rabbit hole. I read. I research. I experiment. I figure shit out. I’ve never particularly needed someone standing at the front of a classroom telling me what I should be interested in learning.
Which is probably why the idea that I’ll soon be applying to graduate school is fucking with my head a little.
I don’t particularly like academia.
No offense to academics. It’s just not my cup of tea.
And yet, here I am.
Because what I actually want to do with the next chapter of my life is become a licensed social worker, specializing in gay elder care and counseling.
I see myself working with gay men my age and older who grew up in a very different world from the one we live in today. Men who came of age when being gay could cost you your family, your career, your home, your community, or even your life. Men who may now be facing aging, isolation, grief, family estrangement, or the prospect of navigating bureaucratic systems that were never designed with them in mind.
I want to be someone who understands the cultural context my gay brothers and gay uncles came from because I came from it too.
I want to help people navigate the emotional and practical realities of growing older while remaining connected to who they are, where they came from, and the community that helped them survive.
Doing all that, professionally anyway, requires more than simply being a reasonably empathetic human being who has lived out loud most of his life.
It requires graduate school.
It requires a degree.
It requires a license.
So here we go.
The good news is that my undergraduate degree, though more than 30 years old now, is still sitting there on my résumé, quietly doing its job. And as it turns out, it is still the primary prerequisite for most of the graduate programs I’m considering.
So I suppose my mother knew what she was doing. It just took three decades for her investment to pay off. And perhaps that’s the thing I’m finding most amusing about all of this.
I didn’t get my degree because I was passionate about higher education. I didn’t get it because I dreamed of academia. I didn’t even get it because I wanted to be there.
I got it because my mama made me.
And now, more than 30 years later, that little piece of paper may finally help me become what I want to be if and when I grow up.
Who knew? My mama, apparently.
Keep calm and learn on!
Clint 🌈✌️
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FROM THE ARCHIVES
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BORN THIS WAY ON THIS DAY
08-13 = Andrea Gibson (1975- ) = American spoken word poet 🌈
08-13 = Domenico Dolce (1958- ) = Italian fashion designer 🌈
08-13 = Gluck (1895-1978) = English painter 🌈
08-13 = Herb Ritts (1952-2002) = American photographer 🌈
08-13 = Jennifer Pritzker (1950- ) = American investor and philanthropist 🌈
08-13 = Karine Jean-Pierre (1974- ) = French-American political advisor 🌈
08-13 = Sam Champion (1961- ) = American tv personality and weatherman 🌈
MAN CRUSH OF THE DAY
“Many people who excel are self-taught.”
Herb Ritts