Problems and Student Dreams
"Don't be pushed by your problems; be led by your dreams." This anonymous quote has replayed in my head since I began noticing that my family was not quite like everyone else's.
When my mother packed my siblings and me up and headed 10 hours west to Custer, South Dakota, I felt as if it was a fun vacation. Little did I know that it was an impulse decision based on the recent divorce between my recovering alcoholic father and emotionally abused mother. At the young age of four, I understood little of what was going on around me. When my mother got married in South Dakota, we again picked up our unusual family and left for Red Oak, Iowa. I enjoyed the small town, up until the point when I heard a knock on my first floor window, only to find my mother with a black eye asking me to let her back in the house. Her latest husband had enjoyed his beer a little too much, and decided that he would also enjoy punching my mother and locking her outside of the house in the middle of the night. At this point, I was eleven, and began to realize that this wasn't how it was supposed to be. I felt helpless and weak because there was little I could do for my mother to protect her from her second alcoholic husband, and when she finally mustered up the courage to divorce him, that I was relieved is to say the least. Following the divorce, my mother took my father up on a "leap of faith" offer to move back to Minnesota in order for his girls to be closer to him. Because of my mother's financial instability, my father offered to loan her the money needed for the moving costs. She had trouble accepting the charity he offered, but because she knew that it was the best thing for us, agreed to the proposal.
The move up caused more problems than it seemed to solve, and as arguments in our household increased, I found myself hiding in my room and reading books to escape from reality. My early teenage years consisted of wishing that I had a family that was able to eat dinner together without an argument breaking out, and wondering why I had been given such a dysfunctional family. One night as I heard muffled yelling from behind my closed door, I decided that I would purpose to make different choices; I decided that I would use my situation as motivation to break out of the mold. At the time, our family had yet to produce a college graduate, and I was determined to change that.
As I examined how much my mother had to fight and sacrifice in order to provide a somewhat stable environment for our family, I decided that whatever I chose to do with my life, I would pay her back in any way possible. As I attended school and began to show interest in the various science courses, medicinal studies came into the forefront of my mind. My mother's lack of income would prevent any help for my college education, which frightened me to a certain degree. I was repeatedly told that I would be in debt for the rest of my life if I pursued a career in medicine, and that the courses themselves were rigorous and straining. In short, I was told that it was a ludicrous desire. The more I was told that it was impossible for a person in my situation, the more I sought to fulfill the desire.
I began to set goals for myself in order to achieve my ultimate intention of becoming a doctor. Ranging from becoming valedictorian to getting a job in order to begin saving for a future of schooling, I worked long and hard to give my best in every area. Each time I felt discouraged or exasperated, I would remember the desire I had to break out of my family's mold. I would remember all the people who told me that I couldn't possibly attempt such a thing. Most importantly, I would remember my mother, and my hope of buying her a dream home for a restful retirement. My mother acted as a role model for the type of strength and courage I would need in order to chase after my dreams, and there is no doubt that my background forced me to be tough. I used my family's dysfunction and my broken childhood as motivation to succeed and build a stable foundation for my future family, as well as incentive to repay my hard-working mother for everything she had sacrificed in order for me to pursue my dreams.