Drop Out Purgatory

"It’s easier to take the insults when you’re not around to hear them, so I started cutting."

By Quincy Mosby

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It’s three o’clock on a Wednesday. Any other kid is in school, but I’m sleeping on the couch at home. My mother comes into the living room, and tells me exactly what I’m doing wrong. Then she leaves and I watch television. This happens every day for three months. The whole time I’m thinking, “How did I get here?” For the first half of high school, I was an excellent student. But starting junior year, my grades began to slip. I didn’t turn in a single assignment for Legal Studies, one of my favorite classes.

Procrastination got the better of me, and I hadn’t turned in an assignment all semester. Finally, on the last day, I handed in a stack of work. My teacher asked a lot of questions about my home life. I told her what I'd been telling everyone - nothing was wrong, I just needed to do better and pay more attention in class. At that point, that’s what I really believed.

But there were other factors - like the kids who stole from me, or didn’t bother waiting till my back was turned to tear me apart. It’s easier to take the insults when you’re not around to hear them, so I started cutting. And when you’re getting up in age, you realize there’s a world outside your house. A lot of my friends started cutting class and ditching years before I did. But I caught up. Eventually, it got to the point where even the guys I was cutting with were like, “Dude, don’t you have a class this period? Why are you out here?”

My mom always used to talk to me about problems with other kids that she thought were holding me back from being the student she knew I could be. She eventually made me see the school counselor, to let go of the bitterness she thought was consuming me. He tried to help me the best he could, but in the end all our talks didn’t make a difference. Come senior year, I wasn’t going to school at all. Dealing with teachers and getting work done is tiresome. There’s something liberating about leaving school whenever you want.

Everyone thought I was on drugs, but I wasn’t. Teachers would say: “He had so much potential, what happened to him?” It’s like after you’ve lost a schoolyard fight - you’ve got blood on your face and you just got your butt kicked, and someone says, “What happened?” That’s the most annoying question anyone can ask you when you’ve been beaten down.

But eventually someone I couldn’t avoid asked that question. Daniel was like an older brother from the time I entered high school. He looked out for me when people tried to put me down. When he asked, “What happened?” I felt I owed him an answer. And his caring motivated me to want to do better.

That was about a year ago. Now I’m finally turning my life around. And it’s not as hard as laying on the couch at four in the afternoon, after a fresh scolding from my mother. Once I decided I needed direction…it was easy to envision a path for myself. I’m getting my high school diploma, and I’m writing and drawing, exploring my artistic talent. I’m not a failure. Not because I always succeed, but because I’m too much of a loser to stop trying until I win.