A Fork In The Road

Fork in The Road

When I was eighteen years old, I had to make a decision that would define the rest of my life. I wasn’t aware at the time how big the decision was going to be but with very little life experience and foresight I made the best decision I could and hoped for the best. Now in my mid-forties I can appreciate how the decision I made at a critical point in my life shaped my future decisions and led me to where I am now.

Education was heavily encouraged in my home. My mother was the youngest of seven children and the first in our family to graduate college. She received a business degree from Old Dominion University and my grandmother couldn’t have been prouder of her. My mother was raised in the projects with the rest of her family and she quickly assessed knowledge was the only guaranteed way to break the cycle of life she saw stuck in repeat. People either tended to have children at a very young age and were forced to forgo education to work and provide for their offspring or their lives were waylaid by drugs and/or alcohol. This cycle seemed to repeat at each younger generation and my mother decided at a very young age she would not follow this path. She did very well all through school and then she went to college. While working at the Naval Base to assist her in paying for college she met my father and she ended up pregnant right before ending her freshman year. I was born in the second semester of her sophomore year and my mother missed exactly three days of class because of my birth. She was so determined to graduate college she did what she had to do to make sure I was taken care of and she could finish college and she did graduate on time. Using her degree, she began working for a major bank at the time and worked her way up to a senior position and was the primary provider for our family. We immediately moved into a nice home in a good neighborhood and I was granted a chance to see a different way of living than my mother witnessed throughout her childhood.

By the time I started school my mother emphasized how different we lived than most of our family and she made sure I knew it was because she was able to provide generously for our family due to her education. She reminded me constantly how important it was to do well in school because education was the key to open doors that were generally locked for people who came from where we came from. She was always so happy when I brought home my report cards because I was always on the honor roll because of the running dialogue in my head of her voice always stating the importance of education. My path started like hers. I always did very well in school, and I remained on the honor roll up until the eleventh grade. The story of my downfall actually started in the summer before my sixth-grade year. I met a boy who was going to start the eighth grade at the same school. He just walked up to me and told me I was his girlfriend and I was like sure ok. We ended up staying together until I was a junior in high school, and he had graduated. We had planned our lives out and we were going to get married after I graduated. Unfortunately, his younger brother was murdered not too long after school started that year and my boyfriend changed into someone I didn’t know. He ended up getting another girl pregnant and we broke up which was devastating to me. My grades started to slip to more C’s than anything, but I did make it through my junior year passing all of my classes. My senior year I struggled worse than the previous year because I couldn’t get over all the plans I had made for my life that were ripped away by a tragedy and losing the relationship I thought I would have for the rest of my life. I can honestly say now I went through a depression. There were days I couldn’t make myself get up and go to school. I was absent more than I was present and before long I was so far behind there was no catching up. For once the education mantra inside my head failed me and I lost sight of the key and the desire to open those locked doors.

One month before I was supposed to graduate high school my mother received a call that would change the course of my life. My guidance counselor called to inform my mother there was no way I could graduate because I was failing three out four classes I needed to graduate. I will never forget the look of disappointment on my mother’s face when she told me I wasn’t going to graduate. I could tell she blamed herself even though she had done everything in her power to show me the way to a successful life was through education. The guidance counselor offered several options including attending another semester of school the next year, going to night school or even taking the GED exam. My mother talked through each option with me and then she said whatever I decided she would support me, and she left me alone in my room to think through my decision. I had a choice to make, a fork in the road, either quit school all together or go figure out a way to make up for my failed credits and graduate with a diminished G.P.A. All night I thought about the options presented to me and I came to a realization right before dawn. I didn’t like any of those options. All the options ended with me leaving high school with education not representative of the hard work I’d put in from kindergarten up until my senior year. I made the decision to redo my entire senior year even though I only needed three classes because I wanted to recover my grade point average back to something my mother and I both could be proud of. I knew I did not want to attend the same school because I didn’t think I could handle the embarrassment of everyone knowing I had to do a second senior year. With those decisions made, I contacted my father who lived in a different state by then and asked if I could come live with him for a year and so I could enroll in school and repeat my senior year. He agreed immediately and we talked to my mother together about my plan. For the first time since she found out about my failure, I saw pride in my mother’s eyes again. My inner mantra turned back on and I was determined to end my high school career on top.

Attending a new high school when you’re a senior in unfamiliar surroundings is difficult but when you have a mission you barely notice. I spent my second senior year focused on one mission graduate with honors. They started off putting me in regular classes because of my poor performance at my first attempt at a senior year. After only a couple of weeks of attending classes, my teachers demanded I be moved to honors classes. I took on a full load of seven classes each semester even though I only needed three classes to graduate. The senior class at the new school surprisingly embraced me and I made several friends which made it a pleasant experience. I worked harder than I ever did any other time in school and by the end of the year it all paid off. I graduated an honor graduate with an academic letter and advanced studies diploma. My parents both attended my graduation and they were so proud of my perseverance. I learned something about myself in that moment as I walked across the stage. Even if things didn’t work out the way I planned, I had the ability to pick myself up and find a way to accomplish my goal. This ability would serve me well going forward with my life.

Making the decision to take the tougher road in the face of adversity as a young adult and pushing through it to achieve my goal gave me the confidence to travel nontraditional paths throughout my life to achieve success. I’m very happy with where I am in life right now and I’m proud of what I’ve been able to accomplish in the time I’ve been given. I served my country for ten years in the United States Navy. I successfully completed Navy Nuclear Field Training School which is one of the toughest schools in the military. I was the second female to be qualified as Propulsion Plant Watch Supervisor aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise. I earned three bachelor’s degrees in nuclear engineering technology, biology and chemistry. Right now, I’m a quality engineer for a semi-conductor company and my career is progressing better than expected. I am so grateful for the eighteen-year-old kid who made the decision to take the longer, harder road with the better payoff than to walk the quicker, more commonly traveled road where the payoff would’ve been minimal. It’s because of the confidence of that decision that I am a success in my own right today.