Revealing the Roots of Behaviors and Addictions

I Graduated College with the Wrong Degree

but learned that I am a capable student — Dryuary Day 7

I am the son and heir

of nothing in particular.

The Smiths, How Soon is Now? — 1985

I should’ve spent my twenties below the streets of Aleppo with shovel and a brush. I should’ve been four meters deep into an ancient city, covered in dirt, drinking cold beer on the Nile. That ship sailed. I fucking missed it.

The academic part of college was secondary for me. I floated through it with mostly perfunctory effort.

It’s hard to grow into your passions and become a grounded adult when you’re popping pills.

My favorite pill was called beerpotshroomsecstasysexacidcocaine.

I was high, and the side effects were a bear. One of which was a GPA below a 3.0 upon graduation. But even that didn’t matter to me at the time. I had places to go, and academics weren’t going along for the ride.

I was the senior who did her final communications presentation on the legalization of marijuana — in front of a conservative professor — in 1992. I was nothing if not a rebellious asshole. He was more of a garden variety asshole. He gave me a C.

The same semester, I wound up in Dr. Jill Carrington’s Art History Survey I course. It was my last few months of school, and I needed to burn some credits. I thought I had chosen her class. I know better now. It most certainly had chosen me.

As a sophomore, I had taken a modern history course. The hall was dark and had upholstered seats. The acoustics were warm and soft.

I slept in there like a baby, but when I was awake, I was captivated. I read voraciously and studied well for the tests.

I never thought I’d be interested in WWII, boy was I wrong. Events and battles, the human stories of people on the ground, the comparative anatomy of strategy, Hitler’s downfall. I was smitten. I remember my professor handing back our final exams. He handed me my paper, but tugged back a bit before letting me have it.

“I do not understand how you sleep in here, and then waltz through the door and ace the exams,” he said.

He gave me a B+ for the course. I would probably have done the same. Nobody likes a sleeper in class. But I loved history, and even though I kept slugging it out in the trenches of the Communications Department, I wanted more of it.

“You’re taking Art History Survey I as an elective?”

“Yeah.”

“Carrington’s class is a bitch. High failure rate. You’re graduating. Take something easy.”

And this was pretty much how the conversation went everytime someone became privy to my recklessness in signing up for the course.

“You watch, mid-semester, a third of the class will be gone.”

They were right. The course was hard. By the end, a third of the class was gone, but not me.

I aced it. I aced that class. My mouth was agape through every lecture, every slide, every analysis, every research assignment. I studied…hard.

I was 22 years old. College students don’t need gold stars, but Dr. Carrington always displayed my essays on her bulletin board as ‘the way to present your knowledge on one of my exams.’

I beamed like a six-year-old…

…and graduated from univerisity with the wrong degree. I should’ve spent my twenties below the streets of Aleppo with shovel and a brush. I should’ve been four meters deep into an ancient city, covered in dirt, drinking cold beer on the Nile. That ship sailed. I fucking missed it, but Carrington’s class showed me that I was, that I am, a capable student.

Many, many years later. I enrolled at Cleveland State University to pursue a master’s degree in history. After two semesters, I had a 4.0.

I wasn’t just elated, it was more like vindicated.

I also had a new business being launched with my husband and baby number three on the way. I couldn’t handle all of it, so I dropped my studies.

Today is Day 7. I don’t feel celebratory. I have too many things on my mind, it’s like the window has been scrubbed until it squeaks, and I can see my memories. They are coming home to roost.

Josie Elbiry, 2021

Revealing the Roots of Behaviors and Addictions is a series exploring how childhood traumas affect us as adults. The next installment will tell a story of chronic nightmares and sleep paralysis.

You can catch up on all of the short memoirs here: