On a sunny Sunday evening, as I walked into my mother’s room she was sitting up on her bed. I thought something was wrong because she had a regretful look on her face. As I stood there , she looked up to me and said “What are you going to do when your parents both pass away? You will need to be very independent and do things for yourself”. My heart dropped and it felt suddenly hard to swallow because I was so confused as to why she was telling me this now. I was only 15 and had no clue on how to be independent. Growing up my mother showed me tough love and forced me to be independent at a young age . I had to continue working at my job, but it was hard managing school and work. I got homework every night which took about 1-4 hours to complete. I worked from 4:00pm to 9:00pm Mondays-Fridays. I was overwhelmed almost everyday. When I got off work, I had to stay up all night to complete my homework and study for my tests. In the mornings, I was always tired and I tried my hardest to not be late to school. Managing everything to not fall behind in school was very intense. It was so much pressure because I always tried to do things on my own. I did things like paying my own phone bill and bought things that I needed. I had to learn how to save my money, so I wouldn’t be broke. I always tried to make my mother so proud of me, but I was only destroying myself. It made me very depressed. In my junior year, I missed a total of 43 days because I simply had too much on my plate and my grades went down hill due to this. At this point in my life, I wanted to drop out of high school. I needed a break from reality. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. I started to see life in a negative way. I barely had any motivation until I had to pick myself back up. I couldn’t give up so easily because then I would have been a failure. I knew I wanted to be successful in life so I had to grind for it. I went back to school, brought all my grades up, and finished the junior school year on the honor roll. Being forced to be independent helps you have a strong mindset in the long run. I have become very determined and hard working. I have a strong desire to finish high school and college. I know that I will make it far in life.I know that I am going to live up to the word “ambitious”. I’m going to succeed in my career because I’m putting my mind and soul to it. I’m going to be the first sibling to graduate college. I will not let depression take over me again and I will accomplish all my goals in life. As I look back to my past self, I can see that I’m stronger than before. I am more determined than ever and very independent. I am now working towards getting a car to start my new life for college.
