Dear Mam and Dad

I know you’ve heard me say this before, but this time I’m serious. I have to leave college. Not I want to; I have to. It’s too much. I sit in a classroom bewildered and unable to concentrate on a thing anyone is saying. I’ve no interest in what’s being said. I text people during class I’m so bored. I know I’ve said since I was 15 that I wanted to be a journalist and I know I have “a way with words” as you like to call it, but this course isn’t helping me.

Do you know why I stay up so late at night? I have nothing else to do, so I invent something to do. Every night, I decide to find out all the facts behind a news story. Last night, I spent two hours going through Australian Republican sites because the Queen is visiting there this week. I plunge all my energy into just about anything else in my life. I’m breaking all sorts of personal records in work, and my boss is genuinely astounded. I’m learning how to manage my money, finally. I’m trying to exercise as much as I can in this weather. I’m going to start trying new things. I’ve decided to go away on my own for a weekend this Saturday to visit Moyrah; I’ve never done that before. I want to change, because I want to know what I want and if I stay in this monotinous life in college, I’ll crack up. I know you want me to stay, but I can’t. The lecturers don’t inspire me like some of them in Dun Laoghaire did. They’re secondary school teachers, and it’s just school without uniforms. I didn’t come this far, through a course like I just came through, to go back to school. It’s demoralizing and I’ve spent so many breaks just wandering around the college, just like in school. I want to go forward in my life, not backward. I hope you can understand that I this is what I want and I want you to understand my reasons. I’ve been told all my life I have this amazing brain and I’ll get far. Well that’s the saddest thing in the world for me; it’s so hard for me to get anything done and when I do, everyone says “sure that was easy for you, you’re so clever…”

I might be clever, I might get far in life. But I am not and will not get anywhere pretending I want to be a journalist. For now. Maybe some day I’ll try again. But for my sanity’s sake, to help me wake up in the morning with a smile on my face for the first time in a long time, I have to leave this course.

I love both of you very much and I don’t want this to cause a rift.

Your son,

Joseph.

I’ve written this out in an internet cafe off O’Connell Street in Dublin surrounded by Chinese people. I’ve wanted to write this for a long time, and I never thought I’d do it here until this morning. I haven’t sent this to my parents. Mam just rung me and asked where I am, so I told her I’ve spent the last hour typing so I could feel like I’m doing something. She sounded like she cared. I sounded like a wreck. I’m not a wreck; I can see nothing but blue skies if I left college. Someone told me this week that I’ve “done the college thing”. I want to show my parents this letter. I’m not sure yet. I’m not sure.

j