Now what?? 12 grades, 4 schools including 5 years in college and suddenly I find myself thrown into the real world I had always been worned about. When I left elementary school on my first day offifth grade, they told me that I was a big girl now. I was made to repeat the words of a song that read "I am a promise, I am a possiblity and If i work hard enough I'd be where I want to be. I was told that as a child I was the future of the world. At 23 years of age I wonder what future for the world I turned out to be, leaving all the world and family I knew behind for one failing job after another, never making enough money, never feeling satisfied with my so called career.
In middle school they told us that the real world wouldnt be as nice as they were to us. They told us that the high school teachers wouldn't put up with our late homework assignments, petty arguments and occasional fist fights. They told us that in highschool it would be a whole new world and we had better be preparared for it. The older kids told us, we'd be bullied and taunted for simply being who we were, freshmen. I found that quite ironic since they too were freshmen at that time.
In high school they told us college was the real world and everyone had to go, that is if you wanted to make something of yourself. So whether we had a major or even a clue of a major or not they made us sign up for schools at every college fair and tour. And on the very first week of classes in the midist of my nervousness and anxiety as I sat in my English 101 class listening to my classmates read their papers aloud, I realized that this too was another stage in my life that I could achieve. Not to mention an A on that first paper gave me a large boost of encouragment.
Like all the years before, I conqured all of the very institutions that frightened me at first glance. I realized that by the end of the first year of each new school I attended at monumental points in my life, my goals were never too far outside of my reach. As saddedned as I was to leave elementary school, it was during my first year of middle school where I discoved the world of literature in a whole new light and would thus be the fuel for entire life's journey. As anxiety stricken as I was to leave middle school and venture into high school, that 9th grade year proved to be piviotal turing point in my life and each year after, I saw myself grow more into the person that would shape the rest of my life. I played sports, discovered my personal style (that would continue to change and upgrade as they years passed) and made a core group of friends that I still lean on till this day. I also went though heartache and break ups, lost some good friends along the way but I never forgot the lessons that high school taught me.
But, my years at Claflin University really shaped me as an adult and groomed me to be the intellectual that I have become. Now as I sit on the borrowed couch in my first apartment at this next stage in my life, post graduation, I realize that like all tthe other major stages in my life the first year was always the hardest simply because it was the first and I made it that way with all the negative vibes I put in my mind about it. The stage I find myself at now is entering the workforce with the goal of finding a job that I enjoy and that pays enough to pay all my bills. I realize now that this fear of failure too shall pass and if I work hard enough, I'll be where I want to be, after all I am the future.
