Wow sounds like your life has had a lot of ups and downs.
when I was younger and in school I was working in a retail store Kmart. the manager wanted to train me to be an Associate Manager.
He was away on vacation for a week and some other guy offered me a job in sales. they wanted a college degree and as soon as I finished college I started working for them. looking back it was a much better choice. look around for Kmart now and you will see there are hardly any of them.