“Oh, man. You should have been there. It sounded freaking amazing. Humboldt doesn’t compare at all.” said Hope, my best friend.
I was walking with my two best friends, Hope and Martha, to the main hall, squeezing through the crowd to Hope’s locker. They were filling me in on the representative they went to see for Wellesley College, a look of excitement in their faces. I hadn’t gone because I had a math test I couldn’t miss.
“Oh, and guess what?” said Martha, she was grinning so much it was getting annoying.
I gave her a pointed glance. “It looks like freaking Hogwarts!” We reached Hope’s locker and tried to make our bodies smaller to avoid the crowd.
“Really?” That was interesting.
“Yup, and they have awesome financial aid. She said that most people end up owing like twelve K instead of forty K people end up owing.” said Hope, shutting her locker. I kept listening.
“Let’s get out of here” I said. We turned around and faced the enormous population of students traveling to get to the first floor, and joined them.
Once outside again, they both continued to rant about the awesomeness of Wellesley College. And if I was being honest with myself, it sounded pretty awesome. This might just be the school I would want to go to.
“There’s just a little problem. It’s all the way in Boston.” said Martha. Of course there had to be something wrong.
“And” she continued “It’s an all girl’s school”
“Boston, you said?” Why did it have to be all the way over there, when I’m here in California?
“Yeah” Hope said cautiously. It was no secret that my choices were limited to where I would go for college because I would be the one paying for it, with no help from my parents; and I didn’t have much saved up.
“Well, it sounds awesome. I guess I can apply for financial aid if I really want to go.” We all had some little hope to go to the same college, which is why we were interested in the same ones.
“Yeah you can. And it’s not like I’m not going to need it either, and if Hope’s grandparents won’t pay for hers then she’ll have to do the same.” Martha tried to comfort me, but I knew that I had a different situation than them.
Senior year was proving to be the most difficult yet; not because of the tests and the senior portfolio or the senioritis, but because it was time to apply for colleges, and if you didn’t know what to major in, it was harder. My case was exactly that, a senior in high school with no idea as to what I wanted to study. I mean, it’s not so bad, but with the constant lectures from my family, and the fact that their look at my future was a totally different view from the one I had, made it a hell of a lot worse.
“And you think he’s gonna let you go?” Ana said, her tone was disbelieving. My father might let me go, for the sake of education, but then again, schools were everywhere here. This conversation had happened many times, in various forms, and with almost all my family; except for my brother; he didn’t seem to care what I did, which didn’t bother me.
Ana, the second youngest of the family, was very active in voicing her opinion as to what I should do for college. She was also the most jealous of the family, which made me think that she wanted to sabotage my college experience because she didn‘t have a ball exactly.
“Oh, come on. If he didn’t let me go, why would you think he’d let you go?” Ana said, looking at me incredulously.
It was tiresome talking about college when they insisted on crushing my dreams. Weirdly enough, we were having this discussion in what I like to call our ‘Green’ room. The living room had a décor that consisted of different shades of green, of my mother’s taste. It was in this room that all the crushing of dreams took place; it was rapidly becoming my least favorite room of the house.
I was telling Ana about the idea my other sister Rose had. Rose was living in Los Angeles with her boyfriend; they were having a few problems when I went to visit her. She came up with the idea that I could study at UCLA and stay with her throughout my college career. Though she didn’t want me to go away, Rose understood what it felt to be cooped up and encouraged me to do what I wanted. It seemed perfect to me, living with my favorite sister, the one I connected to the most, and away from my parents, all the while going to college. Though not in the environment I wanted, I was considering living with my sister. But once I spoke a word about this idea with Ana, she was quick to pulverize it.
I sighed, not wanting to listen to her anymore. She always did this.
“The difference this time is that Rose lives over there, so I’m not going to be imposing on any of our relatives. Besides, she offered and it doesn’t seem like a bad idea” I said. All her life, Ana felt some type of jealousy towards Rose.
“Oh God. You think she’s going to stand you? She’s going to get tired of you and throw you out. Then what will you do?” her voice was getting louder, as if it could penetrate the stubborn shield around my brain.
“I’ll figure it out,” my throat was getting tight. I was really annoyed at Ana. Just because it didn’t happen to her, didn‘t mean it couldn‘t happen to me. It seemed that my family was quicker at breaking my dreams than giving me a simple piece of encouraging advice.
“You think its easy going to college and working? I had to take a year off because I was so stressed.” She continued, immobile from the leather sofa she was laying on, ignoring me.
“I know,” was my only reply as I walked to my room and shut the door. The figures in the TV seemed to grow louder as the silence took over the room.
My room was my domain; the crucial four walls gave me the privacy and strength when I needed it, I looked at the mirror, my black hair was tied into a ponytail. I stared at myself, willing the tears not to drop, yet they disobeyed and roamed the length of my face.
The day had ended and I kept hearing Ana’s words float through my head. I felt lost and completely clueless as to where I was heading after high school. The fact that my family wanted me to stay home kept breaking my happy dreams.
Saturday, I woke up knowing I had to work. In truth, I didn’t like working at my dad’s restaurant, but the money I earned was put in my college savings.
While looking through the cabinets for some food, I heard Ana leaving without so much as a ‘I’m going to work’ or a goodbye. I didn’t give it much thought; we weren’t the overly loving type. Maybe that was the problem with my family; we couldn’t express our feelings in a nice way. That’s probably why I would tear up whenever I had discussions with them when we didn‘t see eye to eye.
After checking that the back doors were locked, I stepped outside, locked the front door, and headed for work in my usual white shirt, black pants and ponytail.
It went by uneventfully, except towards the end there was some commotion about a to-go order we didn’t get right. We ended up redoing the order and taking it as special delivery. By this time I was looking around, trying to find something to do.
The restaurant itself wasn’t really big, we changed the table cloths once in a while to make it look nicer, and there were some murals on the walls. I worked with Christina, my ‘manager’ during the weekends. By the end of my shift, Christopher, the boss and also the only brother-in-law I had, had come to take the order we had mistaken all the way to Berkeley.
Christopher Cabana had been my brother-in-law for about six years, and he was the only person that could really advise me in my college decision. I got along with him more than Elsa, his wife and my sister. He mostly understood where I came from because he went away for college and also stayed home. When he asked me to accompany him to take the delivery to Berkeley, I jumped at the opportunity.
I made a good choice in talking with him. I informed him about Wellesley College, all the way in Boston.
“They have a good financial aid program I can apply to.”
“Go for it. Find a way to get in and leave.” He said, in a serious voice. It was exactly what I wanted to hear.
“Look Lisa, I can tell you the experience both ways. I went to college while living with my family and I also went to college living on my own.” He looked at me for a moment then returned his gaze to the road ahead.
“My life while I lived alone was hectic. My house wasn’t clean for the most part, my room mates partied, I had dirty laundry, and I hardly had enough time to cook something to eat. But I survived with three basic rules. One, pay attention in class. Two, do all my homework above anything else. And three, do the harder subjects first, then the easy ones”
“Why?”
“I used to get home and be excited about a model I had to build, but I would always stop myself and do the hard ones first because then, when all my hard homework was done and I didn’t have to worry about anything else; I got to finish the fun stuff” he said, knowingly. I knew college was going to be hard; but I felt like I needed to move out and grow up, away from my parents expectations; college was the perfect opportunity.
“Now, the time I lived with my mom was easier. Why? Because I had food on the table when I got home, because my house was clean and because my laundry was done. I didn’t have to worry about those three things.”
“Of course it was easier, but I don’t think my mom would wash my laundry for me since I already have to wash it.” He laughed at that.
“Another thing. You have to be willing to owe money”
“I am willing, I know that I will owe money in the end, but I don’t want to owe so much that I can’t pay it off.” Money limited many choices as to where I wanted to go. That’s why I had made up my mind that I would study in the state, much cheaper than out of state, but there was a glimmering light of hope inside me that wanted to go out of state.
We were now in the quiet streets of Berkley. The big beautiful houses loomed through the streets, and the big green trees seemed to blend together in a park we passed by. Looking out of the window at the peaceful neighborhood, it seemed to be the portrait of possibilities; that anything could happen, and I grew stronger from the simple image.
“Wouldn’t you like to live here?” asked Chris, reading my mind.
“Hell yeah. It’s kinda noticeable that rich people live here, don’t you think?” I commented, some what sarcastically.
“It does. Ah, here we are. Give me a hand will ya?” he was getting out of the car and I followed suit. We stopped at a big house that seemed to be full of people. Laughter echoed outside, through the front door. We knocked and delivered. And with that little talk, I felt like I could actually go to college. That my father would let me go in the name of Education, regardless what my other sisters said. He’d probably make sure I had my head near the ground instead of the clouds before I left, though.
Weeks passed by, then months. The college application deadline came and went without much thought. I applied to five colleges, mostly in state but away from home. All that was left were more exams and homework. Life went on with my family making their opinions more pronounced about college. They thought I applied to somewhere close.
More often than not, I found myself breaking down from the pressure of keeping up decent grades, hearing the good “advice” from my sisters and hearing the endless excitement from my friends whenever we talked about college. Sometimes I would lay down on my bed and think of worst case scenarios. It got so serious that one day I exploded.
“Can we stop talking about college for once?!” My friends and I were eating lunch at the Starbucks a block away from school. Random people turned to look at me weirdly.
“What’s wrong Lisa?” said Martha; they stopped mid rant to look at me.
“I can’t do this anymore” I was exasperated. A look of comprehension took over their faces, already knowing what I was talking about.
“Don’t sweat it so much. You’re probably going to end up going to somewhere far away, like Boston or something, with financial aid. Stop worrying.” Of course it was Hope who said this; her name wasn’t Hope for nothing.
This piece of advice seemed meaningless to me. It was repeated too many times to hold any actual hope anymore. A mantra that ran out of juice.
“Yeah, sure” I said dismissively. “But can we talk about something other than college. It’s getting old now and its making this college acceptance process thingy seems longer than it actually is. I need a distraction, badly or I’ll go crazy” I might have exaggerated a bit too much but I was fed up with it.
“Well how about getting distracted with that eye candy?” said Martha. She pointed out a guy standing in line.
“Not in the mood to gossip about hot guys” I said, putting my head in my hands, elbows resting on top of the table.
“Fine. So Hope, there’s a party this weekend….” I started day dreaming once I heard Martha talking about parties. I was not in a situation to be happy.
I daydreamed about a place where a student had the privilege to get in to any college without having to worry about anything, and about the awesome way liberty would feel.
Things quieted down after my sudden outburst. Senior prom was our focus now, with it approaching, not that I was going. It was nice to have something else to talk about, even if it was about who was taking who.
I was almost forgetting about college, my parents got the hint or got tired of repeating themselves and Martha was hooking up with a guy, without a partner, Hope also dropped the college talk. I got home one day to a desk filled with envelopes. Some were big while others were small. I sat down at the edge of my bed. I sorted the junk mail out and got straight to the big envelope, from the colleges I had applied to. I found the one I had wanted to open since the moment I had sent it.
My emotions conflicted with each other; I was excited that I might get accepted to Montana and yet nervous that I might be rejected. I ripped the package open and read the front page.
“We joyfully inform you that we have accepted your application and are happy to have a new member in our school. We look forward to hearing from you…”
And there it was the little ray of light in the endless dark tunnel.
) and not too happy. Plus, I really think you gave some great insight to the preparation of college. It's a big thing. Anyway:
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Thanks so much for posting your story. PM me if you need anything 
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