Low Point
I never did write about it here but the lowest point in my life happened when I was 15, fresh out of high school and wanting nothing more than to go to college. But my mother was against it because we had no money at that time. My parents had just lost most of my father's retirement money and our future was beginning to look depressing.
A lot of people get their first major heartbreak from a romantic encounter. A failed exam result. I got mine one day when my mother turned me down after I told her I could go to college if they gave me some money for scholarship requirements. Before I even finished reading the requirements off the list, my mother told me point blank, "Wait till your father gets his pension". You'd think I was asking for a completely different thing. No, it was only my education.
I wasn't always a smart student but towards the end of high school, I'd gotten quite good on some subjects and it was more than enough motivation and self-belief that I needed to feel sure I would pass any entrance or whatever exam that needed passing to get a scholarship. I knew I'd get it. But so much for self-belief when one of few people whose opinions matter didn't think the same. So, I figured getting turned down by a parent was worse than flunking an exam even before you take it.
You see, I took a lot of pride in that I graduated from high school at the age of 15. Not many people do that. I had it all figured out, finish my education before I got to 20, work my ass off so I could retire early. It goes without saying then that I did not want to wait a year until my father received his pension money. I was young and naive, and a year was too long. It was never the plan. But life doesn't always care about your plans.
I knew we had no money. Heck, what money we had at the time was barely enough to buy food. I got that education was one of the things that had to be put aside out of necessity. I got that. Maybe it was foolish of me to think that if I just did something extra, I'd get what I wanted.
Have you ever wanted something with everything that you got and you still couldn't have it?
I think it was because I did not expect my mother to just shut the door on me like that, especially in regards to something as important to me as education, that I decide to give up. I didn't bother to think of more ways beyond the things I already did, without my parents' help. I could have borrowed money. I could have looked for a job and earn my way through college. I could have gone the extra mile. There were still so many things I could have done, but my mind was elsewhere, my heart broken and all I could think about was how unfair life was.
I was always treated differently. I always sort of expected a lesser reaction from my parents, even if I accomplished more than my siblings. But there was always this hope, a yearning, that one day maybe your parents would notice you they do your siblings. But after this heartbreak, I stopped expecting anything from my mother. I became distant, seemed mature. In some ways, I matured right then and there at age 15.
Since then, my parents stopped physically hurting me like my other siblings too. I think my parents started noticing I was different, they started to see me as someone who no longer needed them as much as my siblings did, as much as I previously did even.
See, I rarely asked them for anything but when I did it was for something ridiculous, like a computer. Of course, they couldn't give me a computer right away. My father's pension was constantly stretched thin paying mine and my sister's tuition, not to mention my younger siblings who were also in various stages of education. But instead of being sorry for asking them in the first place, I squatted at my classmate's house because they had a computer, let her parents feed me for days so I could do and finish a project. That meant I had to do her project too which was no problem at all. I had a way of making my parents feel guilty.
I got that computer the next semester. It just became sort of that way ever since. One thing I promised myself: I would never beg for anything again.
A lot of people get their first major heartbreak from a romantic encounter. A failed exam result. I got mine one day when my mother turned me down after I told her I could go to college if they gave me some money for scholarship requirements. Before I even finished reading the requirements off the list, my mother told me point blank, "Wait till your father gets his pension". You'd think I was asking for a completely different thing. No, it was only my education.
I wasn't always a smart student but towards the end of high school, I'd gotten quite good on some subjects and it was more than enough motivation and self-belief that I needed to feel sure I would pass any entrance or whatever exam that needed passing to get a scholarship. I knew I'd get it. But so much for self-belief when one of few people whose opinions matter didn't think the same. So, I figured getting turned down by a parent was worse than flunking an exam even before you take it.
You see, I took a lot of pride in that I graduated from high school at the age of 15. Not many people do that. I had it all figured out, finish my education before I got to 20, work my ass off so I could retire early. It goes without saying then that I did not want to wait a year until my father received his pension money. I was young and naive, and a year was too long. It was never the plan. But life doesn't always care about your plans.
I knew we had no money. Heck, what money we had at the time was barely enough to buy food. I got that education was one of the things that had to be put aside out of necessity. I got that. Maybe it was foolish of me to think that if I just did something extra, I'd get what I wanted.
Have you ever wanted something with everything that you got and you still couldn't have it?
I think it was because I did not expect my mother to just shut the door on me like that, especially in regards to something as important to me as education, that I decide to give up. I didn't bother to think of more ways beyond the things I already did, without my parents' help. I could have borrowed money. I could have looked for a job and earn my way through college. I could have gone the extra mile. There were still so many things I could have done, but my mind was elsewhere, my heart broken and all I could think about was how unfair life was.
I was always treated differently. I always sort of expected a lesser reaction from my parents, even if I accomplished more than my siblings. But there was always this hope, a yearning, that one day maybe your parents would notice you they do your siblings. But after this heartbreak, I stopped expecting anything from my mother. I became distant, seemed mature. In some ways, I matured right then and there at age 15.
Since then, my parents stopped physically hurting me like my other siblings too. I think my parents started noticing I was different, they started to see me as someone who no longer needed them as much as my siblings did, as much as I previously did even.
See, I rarely asked them for anything but when I did it was for something ridiculous, like a computer. Of course, they couldn't give me a computer right away. My father's pension was constantly stretched thin paying mine and my sister's tuition, not to mention my younger siblings who were also in various stages of education. But instead of being sorry for asking them in the first place, I squatted at my classmate's house because they had a computer, let her parents feed me for days so I could do and finish a project. That meant I had to do her project too which was no problem at all. I had a way of making my parents feel guilty.
I got that computer the next semester. It just became sort of that way ever since. One thing I promised myself: I would never beg for anything again.
//So this post was never finished. Like most of my other entries. Ha.//
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