You have worked your entire life to get to this point.The anticipation is eating you alive. You finally get the score, you open your results...
And your stomach drops. Your life is ruined. You will never get into college. Your work, so hard, yet you fail so epically. Shame fills you. Your chest is tight and you want to cry.

This is exactly how I felt opening my ACT scores. That test told me that the only thing I was ready for college-wise was the English courses I could take and even then, just barely. I have never ever felt like such a failure. I have worked so hard to have my dreams brutally smashed.

I always had the dream of going to college, but it seemed like such a far-fetched fantasy. I wanted to be the first one in my family to go to college. So when you want something so much, but you have other priorities, which do you choose?

Do you choose what you want or do you choose what needs you?

I could blame my mom for what happened easily, but I won't. It hurts to know that she didn't help me, but how could I expect a 16 year old drop-out back in the 80's to possibly know what I am trying to learn. Face it, the times have changed.

If you want it, don't hold it back. Make time for it somehow. Study your butt off because I guarantee not doing it when you can, you'll regret it. Do your duties, but you have to make some time for yourself, otherwise, you'll be the one to crash and burn.

Don't make the mistakes I did is what I am trying to say.

If you want it, go get it.

I have realized that the only thing that truly stands in the way of dreams is you.

Do you think that someone deserves a second chance though because they did the right thing? I sacrificed my future, my precious study time that would be used to secure my future, to mother six kids that weren't even mine. Does that ever merit forgiveness? Second chances, are they totally forgotten?

Maybe it is just a number, but to me, it was so much more.

Live your life. Fight for what you want and don't EVER regret it.