Luck Right?
So when I went home recently I got to see one of my cousins. She and I are roughly the same age and are really in very different places. Well let me start from the beginning. We grew up very close, almost best friends; we did everything together, even though lived in different towns. My friends knew her and I knew her friends. Well fast forward to college. I started at UNT in the fall of 99 and she came to visit because she too wanted to go there. I even bought her a bumper sticker so she could put it on her car and stuff. It was really cool. I took her to her advisor meeting and showed her around and got her apartment info. Well she was never admitted because she had a hard time passing the TAAS tests that we unfortunate Texans must take.
So I start getting pressure from my family to help her since I had no problem getting in. I had no idea how to help her. I was horrible at standardized tests. I took my SAT like 4 times and my ACT three times just to get a minimum grade to be considered for acceptance to college. The TAAS tests I took twice. So I got in right? I barely got in and I had to work hard to stay there. School has always come easy for me in a way but college was different. I was coming out and finding out who I was and it was really weird. I didn’t want to do anything. I took 5 years to finish and that was after I failed out and took a forced year off because of academic suspension. So I worked for that whole year, and went back even after people told me I wouldn’t. I knew I would and I did with flying colors. Deans List twice and Presidents List my last semester. However now that I go home with a new job and a seemingly perfect life after graduating I get a very bitter feeling from her and other family because she couldn't get in or because I didn't help. I had NO help at all. I applied on my own and took all of the tests alone and failed and passed on my own. I got government grants and financial aide. I worked and took 21 hours because I wanted too so I could prove to myself and others that I had done it.
She has a baby now and went to cosmetology school and is working at a salon she likes but I still feel very cold when I see her. She's very short with me like I abandoned her. I did not. She could have done what I did. Studied for months and taken classes to help her. It just makes me mad that everyone around me thinks things come so easy for me. I hide things well and don't like to talk about my flaws; I just do what I have too. Now this job even, "You're so lucky because that's a great job." Yeah I know it's a great job, and it took four months to find while I'm going out of my mind into a depression because I felt lost not knowing where I would be this time next year. Lucky right? I searched everywhere to find a job I wanted, while staying at a place I hated just to get by. Lucky that I applied and waited patiently to hear back and lucky to get an interview and thank god luck got me the job. Not my skills or my ambition to get what I wanted. I feel the same way I always did about her even now. I hate myself for feeling like maybe I should have done something to help her cause now we are so far grown apart, nothing will ever be the same. Right.
