My ability to fool myself never fails to amaze me. Last week I ordered a copy of my University of Washington transcript from my first college try in the 70's. It arrived today and I looked it over. Reality was less a breath of fresh air than a frigid arctic blast. Holy toledo, was I an inconsistent student. There are far more D's than I remember, and a whole lot of withdrawals and incompletes. I had one shining 4.0 term, I'll have you know. Of course, this was the term in which my folks made me live at home and commute instead of living at the sorority where I obviously was too busy partying to study. But there are quite a few A's larded throughout the history of my attendance at the UW.
Nonetheless, there are some nasty surprises. The worst part is how little my memories jibe with the reality of the photocopied transcript. In the intervening years I magically erased the painful parts and gave the grades a little push. You know, "remembering" getting a C instead of a D. The C is respectable, after all, if not brilliant whereas the D is a glaring beacon of failure. It's embarrassing and curious to confront one's teenaged mind. My inclination was always to gloss over the humiliation and outright lie to myself and others in order to salve a badly wounded conscience. (I used to have quite a little problem with lying, which is why I find lying so unforgivable now.) I'm not berating myself over it because hey, that's the sort of person I used to be, but it shocks me a little that I never got around to revising the glossy version once I grew up and stopped dodging responsibility. Instead, I continued to take comfort from a reality that never existed.
It's unpleasant to see how I squandered my education, and even more unpleasant to realize I have never reexamined my dubious memories. I've been a coward, and it's time to face facts. I did poorly because I didn't go to class, didn't try hard enough, didn't study, or failed to withdraw on time. For the first time in my life my decisions were completely up to me and I did not have much discipline nor was I good at planning ahead. Result: a terrible grade point average, and a rather amusing record of biting off way more than I could chew. Boy, have I come a long way.
See what you get when you spend $4 for a transcript? A reevaluation of your past. Cheap at twice the price.
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