When the World Whispers Give Up…
We did it. These are the words of encouragement I utter under my breath after conquering any battle whether big or small.
During this last semester of my major, I often look back and reflect on my journey up until this point, and although it has not been easy, it has been necessary. I entered college as a 21-year old mother of three very small children, and I must be brutally honest in saying that it was hell. Although I had heard stories about the college experience as a single parent, nothing (and I do mean nothing) could have ever prepared me for the physical, mental, and emotional tests I was going to endure.
Now mind you, I was no stranger to hard work at this point in my life. At 16, I became pregnant with my first son, and I became a mother my junior year of high school. My senior year, I incubated my second son. I endured criticism from my family, my peers, and most surprising of all, my teachers. I faced questions like “Why didn’t you have an abortion?” “Are you still going to graduate?” “What were you thinking?” Honestly, I could not answer any question as if it were multiple choice. Every answer was a complex essay question complete with references, and no one was willing to read it.
For me, life has never been simple. I like to think of myself as a realist although the truth may be that I am just overly emotional. I couldn’t bring myself to tell my high school counselors that I had been abused by my mother or that I had abandonment issues because of my father. They would never understand that I trusted an older man with the entirety of my being or that I believed God would tell the sun to shine away from me if I had gotten an abortion. The realization I received in high school was that one or two “bad decisions” could trump any good that one could ever do.
“One or two things I know for sure, and one is that you must always stay true to you.”
I had been in the gifted program ever since second grade. Academics were never a problem for me. Quite the contrary, they were my heroin and hallelujah, and that had remained true through the tests of time. However, that fallacy was shatter during an eleventh grade English project. During group projects, I had always volunteered for the role as leader. I enjoyed the responsibility of assigning responsibility, I guess. After receiving an A on the project, the entire group was elated, and I was beaming because I felt as though I were the glue that held everything together. That is until the group picture when my teacher asked that I hold the display in front of my pregnant belly. I shattered. All the hard work I had dedicated had been negated by a decision I had made months before.
That one experience fueled me to work even harder, and I ended up graduating 3rd in my class as a pregnant teenage mother. For a while, I figured the best thing for me to do was work my ass off so that my sons would never want for anything, but after two years, the stench of my dreams deferred became unbearable, and I was slowly suffocating.
After giving birth to my third child, my daughter, I realized that fighting for the dreams of my children meant nothing if it meant giving up on the dreams I had for myself, so I finally decided to enter into the alternate world known as college.
I’ve cried moats to guard my daughter’s castle. College has not been easy. I can recall several times when I was forced to stay up for class after working a 12 hour night shift as a short order cook. My body was exhausted to the point of nausea, and some days, my kids had cereal for dinner. The emotional strain was the toughest. In the back of your mind, you replay the voices of everyone who ever doubted you, and you pressure yourself into preserving. However, under the weight of constant and unwavering responsibility, one begins to crack.
I have accomplished several things as a college student. I have been featured on the President’s List more than once, and I have been on the Dean’s List on several occasions. I was also recognized for Communication Studies at the 2015 MGSC Honor’s convocation, but the stigma that followed me all the way from high school remains the same. “She does so well considering she is a mother.”
Parenthood was never an end to my individuality or a demise to my abilities. If anything, being a mother has amplified all my attributes tenfold. Now, at the end of this journey, I cannot wait to see what we, my children and I, will conquer next.
