Higher learning

An ex-crack smoker goes back to school.

This morning, I got dropped off for my first day of school.

I was wearing all black, with a bright orange jacket, blue boots — and a baseball cap that read, ‘Unreliable narrator.’

I shouldn’t have been nervous. After all, thanks to a turbulent childhood, I had more first days of school than most people. I switched in fifth grade, again in eighth grade, twice in high school and even hopped from one university to another midway through my undergraduate degree.

But today was different.

My backpack was bursting with books. Yet, it felt weightless. Just like me, bobbing around campus, scouting the library, the cafeteria and cozy spots for future study sessions.

It didn’t even matter that I was much older than many of the students.

In my first year of recovery, I focused on rebuilding my body. This year, I aim to do the same for my mind.

You know what else didn’t weigh me down? A call from the doctor’s office just before I left for school. The doctor had the results of my CT scan — one of many medical tests I’ve undergone since hauling my broken body back from the depths of addiction.

The doctor wanted to push up the appointment that had been scheduled for next month and see me as soon as possible.

For some, that might seem a little ominous. It might even be the kind of news that sinks first-day-at-school feelings.

Certainly, in the past I would have concluded that I was dying. Feeling all tragic, I’d resign myself to smoking vast amounts of crack until that anointed hour.

But the call didn’t faze me.

I spent the past year studying at the school of resilience. And being in the present. Why let the dread of some future appointment spoil this moment?

The doctor’s appointment would be another moment. And, for better or worse, I’ll live in that one too.

The prospect of going back to school made me nervous and uncomfortable. I thought my mind was too far gone for lectures and labs and seminars. I’d been keeping company with addicts and other desperate people. How was I supposed to act around professors, academics and bright-eyed teenagers?

The first time I went to university, I was young and sharp and clean. Addiction cast a shadow over my mind, maybe even rewiring it. I felt like I was devolving.

I’m back to being clean. Just older than the hundred or so students crammed into the lecture hall. And yet, sitting there today, I wondered if even the professor could see the glow near the back of the auditorium.

That was me. Beaming with a sense of renewal.