Untitled
Waking up on that hospital bed on a Monday afternoon, I had absolutely no sense of direction, nor did I understand how my life would play out from then on. In my sophomore year, I came to a grim realization that I essentially had no control over my life, and thought things would never change. My parents, dealing with an important death in the family, couldn’t pay as much attention to me as they wanted to. Therefore, it was easy to hide my failing grades and spend all my free time sleeping. My mother has been sitting on a plastic chair in the corner to the left of my bed for a few hours, waiting for me to say anything. She kept staring at me as if asking me, “Are things really as bad as I think they are?” I eventually managed to find something to say, knowing that I’d disappoint her no matter what I said. “I’m sorry,” was all I could say at that point as she was on the verge of crying again, and I kept repeating that. At this time in my life, the least I could say is I was not in good shape.
I am not a cynical person, but I cannot find a way to tell my story without discussing the ugly bits. I can confirm that this story ends in a very positive way. In my upbringing from the end of my sophomore year until now, I discovered something I never bothered looking for. I found myself.
After staying in the hospital for all of finals week, I was finally able to go home and contemplate the damage I’ve done and try to think of possible ways to repair the irreparable. Despite not being able to look my parents in the eye, I had one motivation to push forward. Earlier that year, I miraculously got hired for the job I’ve been shooting for since I was a child, a leader in my old summer camp. Most of my summer after sophomore year consisted of doing online courses, working at summer camp, and attending painful family therapy sessions. I started my junior year much more enthusiastically than I did my sophomore year, yet I was still incredibly nervous about how I could make this year different from the last in terms of academics and of forming healthy relationships. Much has happened in my junior year that I believe helped me evolve into a much better person, but one memory persists in my mind more prominently than the rest. My specialized course in 2-D animation in junior year could not be taken without the ability to collaborate with others. I was not expecting a challenging course, but soon realized where all of my effort needed to go. I was dismayed to see a girl struggling to find a partner who wouldn’t reject her due to her learning disability. She was willing and creative, but her autism made it hard for her to communicate properly with others. I paired with her because I could empathize with her learning disability. Pairing with her was significant because it let me convince myself that I can matter if I try. I didn’t think anybody other than myself was paying attention to me until my instructor surprised me with a Student of the Year award that I didn’t know existed for being passionate about helping my partner the whole year. Now, despite my lower level classes and low GPA, I felt qualified to do more with my life. It was much easier for me to think about college and, more generally, my future knowing that I could actually develop healthy relationships now.
I started to appreciate myself just a little more, and started setting goals. For the first time in high school, I actually cared about my own future, and it felt great to be able to dictate in what direction my life is headed. I extensively researched different colleges and universities until I compiled a list of all my target schools based on my desired major, computer science with an emphasis on game design. I had realistic dreams for the first time in my life, and stopped lamenting about how Harvard and Yale are too out of reach. Not to be too negative, but most people that I’ve talked to in college so far agree that UC Santa Cruz was not their first choice. People wouldn’t believe me if I explicitly stated that UCSC has been my target school since junior year, but quite frankly that is the truth. Not only do I feel most comfortable in a forest environment like this one, but the school just seemed so real for me. It is very hard to explain why I feel comfortable in Santa Cruz in comparison to other colleges, but I’ve been aiming to get accepted here for a long time. Still, I thought of SC and all other UCs as too out of reach for me academically. After failing so many classes in tenth grade, I was not able to take Calculus or Physics before I graduated high school, the two most important courses for my major. I had to rely on my experiences at summer camp, my efforts to retake courses and my good GPA throughout my junior and senior years to hopefully get me accepted somewhere.
I was in my web design class when I got the acceptance email into UC Santa Cruz, and there could not have been a more fitting place. The instructor in this class was the same person who presented me with the award the year prior that I mentioned in my college essays. I was also around some of my new friends that I’ve made over the year. I could hardly contain myself knowing that I finally accomplished something in my life, but I couldn’t start shedding tears until I arrived home and spent some time alone with my music. My journey into Santa Cruz may not have been filled with positivity and constant achievements, but I could not ask for more. I liberated myself from the expectations set out for me by my family and peers, and learned how to make my own decisions regardless of how people view me.
Waking up on that hospital bed on a Monday afternoon, I was ready to accept that I was fucked. Although I may never erase from my head the image of my mother sobbing alongside my hospital bed holding a gallon of Clorox that was meant to erase more than stains, I’m still alive today, and I’ve never felt the drive to push forward more than I do now. I can honestly say that coming to UC Santa Cruz has easily been the biggest accomplishment of my life so far.