Sometimes I wish I could show people how much the pressure I feel affects me. Slowly the water is churning and I’m drowning… no rescue in sight…

The pressure to be perfect is sickening. My family holds me on a pedestal so I cannot imagine complaining to them. Being the first to go to college, graduate school and now law school… there’s a lot of pressure for me to be successful. Partly because the loan payments are going to be outrageous!

Looking back, I should be proud. Yet, what I feel is not pride or accomplishment–I only feel anger and regret.

I’m angry because I couldn’t have a normal college experience. To afford the tuition at my college (even though it wasn’t much) and my living expenses, I had to work 40-60 hours a week–never holding less than two jobs at a time. And, somehow, I was still barely able to make ends meet. I couldn’t study for six or more hours a day like my classmates because I was usually at work or sleeping from exhaustion. Okay, some of those hours were spent Facebook creeping, but that is part of college…right?

I regret my past because I feel I was limited. I believe that had I not had to work so hard to keep my head above water that I could have achieved a higher GPA, I could have afforded to take the $3000 LSAT prep class, I could have afforded to get above a 162 and get into the school of my dreams. I was robbed of the experience I could have had because of my circumstances. Yes, I may have graduated with an honors diploma but I didn’t get cum laude or summa cum laude, not because my ability or knowledge was lacking, but because I lacked to necessary preparation time. Where was that factored into my GPA?

Who do I blame, though? Do I blame my classmates who have parents who were able to fund their education? Do I blame the university for not thinking I was needy enough? Honestly, why did it seem my friends who were on “full scholarship” had parents with limitless bank accounts?

I may be angry and regret a lot about where I am now, but truth be told it could have been a lot worse. I may hate that I had to work 40+ hours in high school and college, but how many 25 year olds have almost 10 years of managing experience? I may hate that I couldn’t take the LSAT prep class to get into a Top Ten law school, but then I wouldn’t have come to Stetson.

I do believe that the system we have in place is not fair, but I am unsure whether it is should be  equal. Having to work for my education has made me appreciate it even more. When I received my blue diploma holder in 2010 (and again in 2011) I knew that it signified more than me completing a set number of credits in four (five) years–it signified twenty-two years of blood, sweat and tears that went into working long hours by my mother and then by me to make this dream a reality.

My mom said something when I was young and it has stuck with me every time I hit a rough patch,

“Girls, this article says that kids with divorced parents don’t do as well in school as kids with two parents. Well, I don’t believe that–you can prove them wrong.”

Mom, I’m trying.