And with that simple statement, my life changed completely. No longer was I Starswirl the college student, I was just Starswirl the college dropout. This concludes the first act of my story. As you can imagine, there were some heartfelt goodbyes, some tears shed, and a large feeling of emptiness as I stepped out of the campus with my belongings in tow. Moving back to my home was humiliating to some degree, but I was facing life with a new perspective. No longer would I be pressured into impossibilities, or commanded to follow a certain trail. I was now free to blaze my own, make my first steps into the real life, but there wasn’t much for me to walk on.
You see, I was still eager to study magic, but access to theoretical magic texts outside of Canterlot University was limited at best. The only way I could honestly start working toward my dream was to walk back to that campus to rent books from the library. It was a public library, and many of the ponies there were familiar, but it still brought back haunting memories of the life I had once lived. The walls themselves closed in ever so slightly whenever I went to retrieve a book from the shelves. In many ways, however, it was a good position to be in. I wasn’t a student, so the bells no longer applied to me. I had as much time as I wanted while I filled my small notebook full of notes on magic. I was able to rent unicorn exclusive books as Evenstar had granted me that privilege. It was a calming atmosphere, and I didn’t have anything keeping me from learning.
That existence carried on for several weeks into winter. However, the life that I lived wasn’t one that I was truly happy with. I was learning about mental dimensions at a rapid pace, but I wasn’t truly grasping the concepts. I wanted to learn, and I was learning no doubt, but it was as though I were doing hundreds of mathematical calculations in my mind, I wasn’t sure if any of them were wrong. Obviously, I was hindered by my physical nature, but that wasn’t about to stop me from pursuing my dreams. I was determined and stubborn. Giving up was not part of the equation. I saw that as failure worse than my suicide attempt. I wasn’t going to give in.
I have simply brushed by these few weeks because they were not formative to my development. Whenever I entered a routine in my life, the days would blend together. With me learning relatively little amounts of magic in a routine as typical as eating, my days may have well been one. There was nothing to mention during this short period, so I will begin this second section on the first day of winter vacation. As nearly all of the students were leaving for the break, I was beginning an increased regiment of study. I figured at the time that my lack of understanding stemmed directly from the more relaxed time in the library. I had a plan, one that required nearly every waking moment of my days to be spent in the library with my nose in every book I could find. Fate, however, dictated that I would do just the opposite.