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helloitslaura wrote:Please provide me with your reaction - does this stir your emotions at all? I know I might have to do some mechanical cleanup, but I want to first get a read on the content. This was really hard to do without crying because it's so highly personal. Any comments and I will return the favor!

My freshman year of college concluded at an extremely low point in my life. At 17, I was emancipated from my adoptive parents for a variety of painful reasons, and I entered my first year of college without anyone’s support, financial or otherwise. Throughout my freshman year I was overextended, disorganized, and grasping – I even neglected to take the administrative steps to properly withdraw from a section of a class which I could not take due to a work conflict. This oversight earned me a big fat “F”, which haunts me on my transcript, ten years later, to this day causing my cumulative gpa to nose-dive from a 3.7 to a 3.1. Since then, however, I have paid my way through college as a full-time mother and full-time Honors Student.
At times it feels as if my pursuit of an undergraduate education is a demonstration of Zeno’s Paradox, but not once did I allow personal challenges to derail my college plans. I did not permit myself to lose sight of my goals when I experienced personal family trauma, worked 60-hours a week to support myself, became a mother rather unexpectedly, nor when my husband filed for divorce shortly thereafter. Personal challenges only further galvanize my resolve.
I only took a short break after having my son in July and six months later I enrolled full-time. In the 2008 spring semester, after working a full day as a paralegal and attending evening classes, I would make the most use of my sleepless nights by nursing my child in my arms with my books open in my lap. At these times I was the most at-peace, reveling in the impossible beauty of my child’s tranquil repose, while taking another step closer to finishing college. That sleep-deprived inaugural semester at Temple University I earned a 4.0 and I could not have been more pleased.
The late Randy Pausch poignantly expressed to millions that brick walls exist to “to show how badly we want something.” This idea is ever-present in the daily trials and tribulations of single motherhood. My days at times feel as if I’m forever pushing a rock uphill, as I confront setbacks and sacrifices daily. I rely on an unwavering dedication and unflinching belief that the small sacrifices are ultimately “worth it”, and that setbacks exist as opportunities to demonstrate resilience. Being a mother provides me with the inspiration and sustenance to ford through chaotic waters and being a parent means that my aspirations are much more than endeavors for personal success; they are opportunities to forge a meaningful existence for myself and those most important to me. I remind myself that Sisyphus is a myth; if he was a single mother, not only would his boulder reach the top but he would have done it while carrying an infant and singing a lullaby.
Because I was adopted at 4 years old, I have virtually no knowledge of myself or my heritage but this has never hindered my convictions of who I am as a person. I am ambitious and focused, organized and committed, mercilessly efficient and consistently resilient. I have come a long way from being a girl who was in an orphanage until she was 4. I have come a long way from a girl whose parents could not afford to send her to college. I try, every single day, to be a positive example to my child and to be the kind of parent that I wish that I had had. I am relentless in my pursuit of goals and achieving my dreams, and I will succeed in law school at Beasley because I am worth considerably more as an applicant than my numbers suggest.