Growing up, I had a few dreams of what I would want my adult life to be like. Of course, many have failed. Never was I someone to give up though but sometimes things just do not work out the way I had planned them to. If there is one thing I learned, it is for me not stick to just what I had planned because in times life gives me different ways of accomplishing my goals and they could be better than what I had pictured, as long as I am still getting to where I want to be. I have done so much in my life to get where I am right now, and I do not regret any of it.
Everything I have gone through has just made me who I am. The strong independent individual I have become. It is important for me to have something I want to achieve, not only for myself, but for my family. I came from an unfortunate Mexican family, struggling to get by. It was tough, and I know I was little and do not remember much, but there is one thing I will always remember: Seeing the pain my mom went through, the struggle she went through trying to provide for her family. She was only seventeen and already set out on her own with a family.
Selling fruit at the swap meet, and cleaning family members’ homes for some extra cash. After a while she took a friend’s advice and my mother and I moved to Las Vegas where she managed to find a job quickly and afford an apartment. Because of my past, I have some high standards for myself. I want to show my mom that all the hard work she did when she was young was worth it. I want to show her she raised a well-educated, successful woman, who never gives up no matter what the conditions are, just like her. Thinking back, I have set a lot of goals for myself. Some are short term, and some long term.
Most of the goals I had set for myself fell apart, and some until this day I am still striving to accomplish. For example, some things I wanted to achieve but I could not accomplish are going to UNLV for nursing, purchasing my own car, and obtaining FASFA money. Now, these other things I am proud I have accomplished them. For example, I have a full time job; printing department manager at office depot, I was the first in my family to graduate High School and go to college, I attended a magnet High School and was in a medical program and graduated with an EMT-Basic certification.
Now, like I had mentioned before, I did have some setbacks thus not accomplishing all the goals I had set for myself. I can only move forward though, which is what I did. All I had to do was either make new goals or justify the current ones I had to go along with what life had thrown at me. When I was young, I had always dreamed of becoming a nurse and helping those in need. Until this day I still dream of becoming a nurse and I am closer than ever, at least I like to think I am.
The major setback in my life was that I got pregnant at Seventeen and had my first child my senior year of high school. I was alone, parents did not support me as much in the beginning and I was going through it alone. It was not until my son was about two months and I started taking one college class that my mother and father stepped in and helped. I say that was the worst thing to go through but it made me strong. I have had quite a few goals for myself; everyone should. But that is just my opinion. Sometimes the people who go through the worst come out doing just fine.
It took the hardest times in my life to make me stronger than I thought I was. I did not always have confidence in myself I felt and thought, “well, if no one from my family has been able to pass high school then what makes me think I will, and move onto college? ” Eventually I grew out of that and look at me now, I set goals for myself and believed I could accomplish them, and now I am never doubting myself in anything. I do everything for my son, he is my only motivation and why I believe I can do it, and need to do it.
