The Importance Of My Life

Growing up, two blocks away from my local community college, it never occurred to me that one day I would attend that college or any college. It was expected that I would graduate high school and then immediately get a job. Coming from extreme poverty and parents who had very little formal education that was the best advice they could give me. To them, having a high school diploma was like having a golden ticket. I was told by everyone around me that money and being able to support myself are the only things that matter. So that is how I lived my life for ten years. Bouncing from meaningless jobs to jobs where I was expendable. I worked two and sometimes three jobs just to help pay the bills. Days where there was food on the table we considered a success. I was miserable, but as far as I knew this is what it meant to be an adult.

One day, I woke up and I was twenty-eight years old, and I had nothing to show for it. I was in an emotionally abusive relationship, I owned nothing, and I had just been downsized from a job that had relocated me hundreds of miles away from my family. This was the final straw and it broke me. I had to move back in with my father after being on my own for years. I began thinking that my life had just hit a huge reset button.

Elizabeth was on the verge of graduating high school. The very same high school I had graduated from eight years prior. However, for her the high school experience was different from mine. Over the years, schools have become focused on helping students further their education. With the help of some very nice teachers and school staff, she was shown just how many routes to higher education were open to her, and she shared this life changing information with me. So against all reasoning, I applied to my local community college, the same one that I grew up next