When I saw the door to my future open, I saw a self-confident, hardworking, friendly, intelligent woman. That woman was about to embark on a new adventure in her life – independence.
She is breaking free of the shackles placed on her earlier life: her parents’ rules, teachers who always spoiled her in some way or another, even her friendships. She is learning to walk on her own for the second time in her life, without someone there to catch her if she falls. She will have to pick herself up, dust herself off, and keep on trying. She will have to adapt to life without her parents to do her laundry, clean her room, cook her food, and check to see if she did her homework, papers, or not. Her parents will not be there to give her money when she needs it.
She will have to learn to cook, and clean, and do her own laundry. She will have to be her own parent, making sure she grabs her coat before heading out into the cold. She will have to be the homework checker and the bread-winner. Her teachers will not be her second parents either. The professors do not care if she goes to class, just as long as she passes in her work and shows up to take the tests.
Professors will not check on her when she gets sick, or find out why she was not in the day before. They will not baby her along as her elementary and high school teachers did. Professors are people too. They want to be outside the classroom as early as they can. For the first time in her life, she will go to school and be away from her best friends. She has gone to school with her best friend for the past thirteen years, since kindergarten.
She will no longer have her friends’ shoulders to cry on, their houses down the street to sleep at, and the security of seeing them every day. She is disheartened, yet she now has a chance to branch out her friendships. At a small college like — she may be able to meet new people, people from all over the nation. She will have new shoulders to cry on, and new houses to sleep at, even if that house is just a different dorm building.
This woman I imagine in my future has helped me to strive for the best I can be. She has helped me to study hard, complete all my work, and be loyal to my family and friends. She has helped me become more self-confident, more open, more of an individual. The door has been opened, and I have yet to step through.
