Missed Opportunities

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I don’t mean to sound irrational, but I sometimes wish our regular life would just go as is despite the pandemic. I wish I could just hold my baby nephew and hug my little cousins, especially right now. However, what’s most difficult is the feeling of being stuck at home. Sure I’ve been keeping myself busy, but I can’t help remembering all of the good plans I had in store for this year.

Before the start of this pandemic, a couple of my friends and I had been raving about concert tour dates announced in early January. Mind you, the only highlight on the news was Mr. Trump’s impeachment trial. So, despite the blood bath that it was, I managed to get decent tickets to the show. Victory I thought, I was all set for May 9th.

Also, my family and I had decided to go to Austin. We wanted to drive there and stop throughout the trip to visit colleges with the end goal of visiting UT Austin, one of the universities I’m most interested in attending. Unfortunately, these plans had been set for Spring Break and were intercepted by the virus newly found in America.

Furthermore, I was genuinely interested in UIL. I wanted to finish the season competing and improving my journalism skills. Although I know I can grow at home, it’s not the same as being with the team and my coaches, and competing gave me a chance to see old friends and gave me something to do at the weekend.

My summer plans falling through has me bummed out. Although most use this time as a vacation period, I had spent a good amount of my first semester making and submitting summer program applications that are now canceled—some of them being at the McCombs School of Business at UT Austin. I feel upset that I won’t be able to travel, meet new people, and learn new things involving business and language.

On the brighter side, the concert turned out to only get postponed, and our tickets would be validated when the event does end up happening. Also, even though my plans to visit universities are no more, I can always do virtual tours. Sure, the UIL season might be over, but there’s next year, and as far as my summer plans, improving by all means necessary is at the top of my list.

Laura C.

As a child, there’s only so much one can do. We have no choice but to accept that we are never in control of what’s happening; in fact, many of us were too naïve to ever even think of the possibility in which we are in control. Throughout these years, she never really knew what or how things worked, within her childhood, all she did get to know was nothing more than her very own feelings and emotions. Her parents are very kind and driven individuals. They both share a deep passion for work because it was implemented at a very young age. As far as she can remember, she too grew fond of it and soon after the age of four played the -at the time super cool- role of a promoter at a family business they owned at a local flea market. Because of this workaholic-like structure, her family as a whole became stressed. This and many more “adult” topics arose a series of altercations between her parents. Of course, for young, little Laura, this meant to distract her little brother with blasting music meanwhile she cried at a corner where he wouldn’t notice. Throughout her early years of school, she had been the main target for a cheap laugh. Anything you can possibly think of, she’s pretty sure she has been called before. After that, she had no more room in her brain to think of anything other than these incidents all together. It felt as if every step she took was out of place. As she grew older, she learned that the anguish and disgust felt within herself were very much validated and were far from wrong. Up until the medial part of last school year was she granted the opportunity to share her story as a whole, along with other problems, for the very first time. It was through her former English teacher that she entered the first step of recovery. Although this newfound path ensured success, she was filled with this sense of uncertainty and fear of neglect. This became the problem when diagnosing her with Mild Depressive Disorder and continued until she forced herself into a hospital for the fear of her own actions. After her discharge, she became quieter about her feelings because it felt as though they either did not matter or were always misunderstood.  Later then she received monthly therapy and was visited twice a month by a social worker in order to learn coping mechanisms and really heal. Her parents too were educated about what was going on and helped her in whatever way possible. It was until then that she took this blindfold, that she had created herself, off and really looked at the bigger picture. There were all these people gathered that love and care for her deeply. The misunderstanding was all of her own, and this helped take a major part in helping overcome that fear and take time for herself this past summer break. She knew then that her life was worth living because of all these reasons. She is worthy of living because she’s been independent since such a young age. She is worthy of living because being bullied created confidence in loving herself. She is worthy of living because she chose to rise above “scary” or “crazy” words like Mental Disorders. All of this makes her so much more worthy of living, and she hopes others can find their reasons too.