It just all fell apart.
I started doing very well in school at the beginning of my Spring ’14 semester; I kept up with most of work and I tried to participate and complete the work for all of my classes. However, little by little I started slipping. There was too much reading and too much annotating that I had to do that it got to a point where I just couldn’t handle it. First it was my Econ class, then my History class, and ultimately my Math class that I just couldn’t keep up with. All together, it was just impossible to bring up at the pace that my life was going.
You see, I am a very active member of my church and that highly influenced in my academic performance. I am in charge of a family meeting and at the same time I am a teenager’s group teacher. Therefore, I need to make sure that I comply with the responsibilities that these two positions demand. I don’t like saying that having these positions affected me in school, but indeed they did because I didn’t know how to balance church and school.
One of the main problems was my lack of organization. I tried to organize myself, but I wasn’t willing to sacrifice any of my activities to put in more work into school. Therefore, it was hard to handle it all. It got to a point where I would be late to my morning classes, lost in my history class, and unwilling to change anything in my routine. I tried to push myself a little, but nothing was really changing.
My emotional life also got in the way of things. I started to “fall in love” with my best friend. Although he is a great person, he wasn’t such a good influence while I was in school. It seemed like he would rather me not go to school at all 🙁 . He complained about how involved in school I was and how I didn’t give him or God time. As a result, I started spending the few hours I had to do school work speaking to him about nothing productive. Little by little, I started texting him during my classes and getting highly distracted because of it. I knew it wasn’t right, but it was hard to keep it under control, specially because I liked the guy and talking to him on my daily basis made it feel like we were getting somewhere… which we probably were… but now I realized that I lost more than I actually gained.
I took five classes and out of all of them I only ended up doing well in two. I got C’s in other two, and a F in History. Never, have I ever failed a class before. And, let me tell you, I didn’t feel bad because I knew that, that was what I deserved. But, I did feel disappointed with myself because I knew I could have done better. I also felt disappointed because not only did I fail myself, but I failed people who had invested money in me. I let things that weren’t a priority impact my academic performance in a way that jeopardized my future. And, worst of all, I knew that I liked my education regardless of how poorly I was doing. But at the time, I couldn’t see it. In a sense it felt like I could careless, although deep down, it was all I cared about.
During this entire time in school, I felt stressed, I felt anxious, I started to have low-self esteem because of my best friend (I felt like I wasn’t enough for him and that I had to change my appearance in order for him to like me. Most importantly I stopped being myself because of him), I felt tired most of the time, and I just didn’t want to continue school. I just wanted to finish my spring semester and forget about it all.
I lost my vision, I lost my aspirations, I lost my motivation and I forgot the reason why I even started.
I did learn a lot during the semester though! I learned things such as…
+I HAVE to be organized whether I like it or not because it’s NEED.
+I learned that your closest friends can become a burden when you guys don’t share the same vision.
+I learned that there are things that you MUST do for yourself regardless of how painful that decision may be.
+I learned that whenever you are sure about a path that you’re boarding, you should go ahead and not look sideways, keep going forward until you achieve it.
+I learned that I am not perfect and I am likely to make mistakes (which I didn’t understand until now).
+I learned that unwise decisions can highly impact one’s future.
…And most importantly, that I must be willing to sacrifice something in order to get to where I want to be.
This story doesn’t end here… There is much more that has been happening and I want you guys to know! But as for now, all I have to say, is whatever you do, please keep moving and don’t give up in school. There’s so much more ahead!
Sincerely,
Brenda.