Senior Essay

Senior Essay
Xynthia Garcia

Looking back at the way my life has been so far I am both surprised and proud of myself for continuing to push myself to success. Using the fact that I am the child of two high school drop outs as the fuel to my fire. I will be the first in my family to graduate, setting a good example for my two younger sisters. I am the only child of my Father, and my Mother’s oldest daughter. After five years of being raised by a single mother, and having the support of our church, my mother got married and the ability to have one place I called ‘home’ was ruined. My family moved every year, sometimes two times a year since I was roughly five. I have attended a total of fourteen schools, always being ‘the new kid’… knowing I would never have those childhood friends to go back to. I managed to stay positive and keep my grades up, earning me a spot in the Cambridge program at North Marion Middle School, a program that offered Eleventh and Twelfth grade classes while you were in Eighth grade. Later, while my mother and her husband were going through a horrible divorce, my mother, my sisters, and I relocated to Immokalee Florida, where we have been living for the past two years, the longest I’ve ever lived anywhere. During the process of divorce, my stepfather filed for immediate removal of the minor children (my sisters) and was granted custody of my two sisters, five hours north of Immokalee. Currently I attend Immokalee High School, I am the Sport’s Editor of the yearbook club, I am enrolled in AP Literature, and a Dual Enrollment student at ITech. I also plan on playing Lacrosse, and am currently enrolled in multiple online classes. As a senior in high school, I am constantly asked what I want to do after graduation. The question drifted along the edges of my mind, and the answer was always the same. I want to give back to the country that has given me everything. I want to be a U.S Soldier. After speaking to multiple recruiters, I have decided to enlist directly after graduation. Where in the Armed forces I go, depends completely on the score of my ASVAB, which I will be taking in December. As terrifying as it is to let go of our innocence, our childhood, our ability to drift along with wherever the universe takes us, I have come to the realization that the career path I am going towards, is completely worth all the hard work I will need to give to get there.