Being in high school it is typically every student’s vision to be at a big university. This was certainly the vision I had for myself after graduation. Being plagued with road blocks; applying to school came at the last minute of my senior year, so my choices were minimal. I chose a university f a r enough away, but still was not what I really wanted for myself. I ended my freshman year with moving back home and getting a job. I did not enroll in school for my sophomore year, for making money superseded an education; at the time. It would take a sincere wakeup call named Brittany to get me to the light and straighten my life out to where I could be productive toward reaching where I wanted to be.
Sitting at home one day after work I had received a message from a girl with whom I hadn’t spoken with since graduating high school! She was where I wanted to be; at a university, living on her own and reaching her dreams. Through compositions back and forth for the week, we had agreed that a reunion was in order. I was to make the 29 mile drive down Annie Glidden from my cold dark man cave and go and visit her in DeKalb. We had been close in high school until circumstances had her paired together with one of my good friends and we hadn’t talked much since. But this seemed to be an opportunity to reignite my spark and help motivate a change in me, for I was going nowhere. The weekend seemed to approach like a slug in the middle of winter and I was eager to have some common ground. As the days passed everything I had planned to talk about and say was forgotten on the trip there. When I walked up to the door my memory was erased like chalk off the board. We made it to the couch and like chatter on the train, time elapsed enormously too fast. We had chatted about where I’d been and what I was up to; which was no interesting topic. I was ashamed to admit that I was going nowhere and needed an out to get back on track. There was just some sparkle about this girl; she had motivation like she hadn’t been let down, beauty like it came cheap, and a brain that made my knees weak. She was the one.
I went home and was enrolled in Rock Valley Community College as quick as the ink would fill out the forms. I knew that if I wanted to get to where she was I had to get my credits up past 60 and have a GPA above 2.75. This was no easy task, I had been out of school for a year, I was working full time, and I had my head so far in the clouds I felt like a bird. My transcripts came in from the other school and contained the information letting me know how high the bar was for me to hurdle. My transferred GPA was a flat 2.00 and I had earned a staggering 34 credit hours. That was a full course load with A’s and B’s or I was staying home next year. However there was no hurdle I wasn’t about to jump over, I knew I had someone truly special behind me and that alone motivated a fire in me that I hadn’t ever seen. I felt like any tribulation that crossed my path was to be conquered for the light at the end of the tunnel was no longer dim, the future for me actually held value, I had something that I wanted so badly, that the taste is what woke me in the morning. It was like finding that lost item in the couch that you missed so much, or seeing an old picture that just made your chest warm. When you get that feeling deep inside and it pushes you to do something you couldn’t do yourself, you know there is something truly special there.
After I was enrolled in school there were still life changes to be made. Bad habits had to be kicked to the curb like last week’s trash; my area of life had to be moved to somewhere more productive until I got back on my feet. All of these things were steps I needed to take to get myself to the top of the mountain. I quit my position at the bar and focused solely on grades and positive habits. I packed up the moving truck and drove to my positive-abode. The best part of moving was also that it put me closer to seeing “Miss Everything”. We would work during the day and meet up at night just to stare at each other as if our eyes had two separate stories to tell. It didn’t matter; when we were together it felt like I could do anything and no matter what challenge came it could be easily overcome. She gave me that spark needed to start the engine and it didn’t shut down. I finished the spring semester with a 2.70 flat. I sent in my application anyway and hoped for the best, but I also planned for the worst. At this point I decided that psychology was my course work. I had taken the entry course but knew I could ace it if I took it again, which was a double whammy if I didn’t get accepted the A would boost my GPA for reapplication. That’s what I did. The first try, as things would have it, sent me with a decline letter. This didn’t even faze me, I was far too happy. I took it in stride and worked full time through the summer and passed the class with just what I expected. I reapplied to NIU and got my acceptance letter in the beginning of August. MY dream was coming true, and that wasn’t even the best part, I had her.
Meeting back up with Brittany was a dream comes true, in more ways than one. She took me from the murky waters of going nowhere, to getting the job done and continuing to reach for the sky; instead of sitting in it. I went from a going nowhere pothead working at a bar to back in school, back to where I dreamed I’d be and loving life. She showed me that I can do what I set my mind to doing and with her at my side the dreams continue to grow, and they continue to grow as our dreams.
