Light at the End of the Tunnel

Light at the End of the Tunnel When I graduated from high school I was like all the other low-life, lazy teenagers, not yet ready to be taken from my parent’s wings. I never realized the importance of furthering my education. I just knew I could “do big things” working as a Sales Associate at 7-Eleven for the rest of my life. After my first child it began to dawn on me that an education would be the only thing that would let me provide for my family in the ways I wanted to. How scary is that I thought? Turning my entire life upside down so I can bring a better tomorrow…I was terrified. My father would have a glisten in his eyes, hoping that this would be the time when I would decide to go back to school, as he would lecture me in his most serious tone, “The possibilities are endless. You can meet new people, maybe even a new guy,” that’s my dad though always wanting better for his babies! So I decided to take myself out of my comfort zone, heart pounding and adrenaline pumping, and just do it. It was not easy and still to this day I cannot see that bright white light flashing at the end of the tunnel, but I am here and I am ready for any challenge. Having children was a big turning point in my life. In all honesty, it brought me back from the fake reality I had built for myself by using drugs and people to no end. From the second I held the pregnancy stick and started to pee on it, and my fingers as well, I was a new person. Knowing with every inch of my soul that I wanted to be able to give my daughter everything that I never had, I needed to figure something out. I surely wasn’t going to be able to pay for college or a car when she turned sixteen making minimum wage at 7-Eleven. My hopes and dreams grew bigger and she was getting older, yet I still wasn’t doing anything to try and go to school. I changed jobs when she was about a year old and started getting paid three more dollars an hour. I thought I was really making a life improvement with that move but