I believe in never giving up…

November 2011…

My hand wrapped around the handle giving me an electric shock that froze my whole body. My mind did spins and my stomach was doing cartwheels, my mouth was drier than the dessert, my heart racing faster than a racehorse. I just had a feeling that screamed at my insides that this visit to the office was going to be worse than any of the other times I was called down to the office.

As the office door creaked open, my heart dropped down the floor. All my teachers and all the assistant principals and even the principal were gathered around the long table talking in hushed voices. As I shuffled my dragging feet into the room and quietly shut the door behind me, all the voices went into a dead silent graveyard and all the mix of cultural eyes fixated onto mine. As I took in the group I saw my mom among them and her cheeks stained red and with tears. Her lips blue and shivering of anger, disappointment, and, honestly, I couldn’t even tell you or describe what she looked like in my eyes. Though when her pale soft blue eyes caught up with mine, my whole body just collapsed into the closest chair. My heart shattered into a million pieces and I was taking short rapid breath. My thoughts running out of control, I was rigid, the whole world around me disappeared, everything was nothing but a blur. No words couldn’t even escape through my clenched teeth. Tears ran down like the Missouri River down my cheeks. Someone was talking to me but I couldn’t hear anything but the shattering of my heart. Everything right then in the world was dead to me. When I found my voice it came in nothing but a stumbling whisper.

‘I…… I…… I…… I’m not…… I’m not…… I’m not going to……” All the voices stopped and all eyes were targeted on me. My teacher Mr. O’Reily gave me a fragile look and asked.




“ What did you say?” I looked up and my eyes were burning and my body engulfed in hatred towards myself. Ms. Morris looked at me and grabbed for my hand in a gentle matter and asked.

“What did you say sweetie?” I clenched and unclenched my teeth together; my temperature was up to boiling point. I looked at her with regret and anger.

“I SAID! I’m not going to graduate on time? Am I?” All breathing stopped, I asked again. “AM I?” I shouted with a little more venom than I wanted to produce.

They all froze; they all didn’t know what to say. They didn’t want to tell me. They saw how hurt I was. They saw the anger building up in me.

Dr. Welte-Gauchat looked at me and said, “By the looks of it right now and by how far behind you are already in your junior year and at the rate you are going! Yes, by the looks of it, you are most likely not going to be graduating on time…”

I lost it! I completely shut down. It took me awhile to process the possibilities but now that someone cleared it up for me. It just sunk in differently, at that moment I knew I had to straighten something up. I went a few weeks doing that, going to classes not drinking, not skipping class to go smoke a cigarette, focusing on homework I was trying. Then one night at home I just did something completely out of stupidity. That was it, I was done for!

On November 26th 2011, I was sent to go live with my Aunt who lived in Dubuque, Iowa. I felt like nothing else mattered, that I was nothing but a screw up, that I was huge mistake in life. My body ached with exhaustion and depression sleeping every day all day for two weeks straight. I had no strength in me to do anything; I didn’t even have motivation to eat anything. I felt grounded to hell, just letting the flames eat my insides whole making feel the sting of the pain, the feeling of abandonment creeped up my spine every time I was asked if I wanted to call my parents.

Around the first week of December, I started school at Hempstead Senior High school and the first week there a big blur just devoured my vision, tears were now a permanent imprint into my cheeks and concrete was built into my feet… nothing else mattered, I was just stuck in a little town in the middle of no where… after a few months are gradually just started to accept that I was stuck in that town till end of the school year… so I did nothing but endure it. I got A’s and B’s and I never touched another bottle of alcohol, I never brought another cigarette to my lips, I never brought a blade anywhere close to my wrists… I was doing extremely well, I was just going everyday to class being on time… I was doing everything I could to just get threw the rest of my junior year with something to remember…

Close to the end of April, I moved back with my parents due to Aunt moving to Seattle, Washington due to my uncle getting a new job. I was then put into my present school Papillion, La Vista Monarchs… there was literally one month left in the school year so I was just integrated into classes that I needed to get through my junior year and then I was called into my counselors office office and she told me something that made me realize I was really a fighter… she sat me down and looked into my eyes.

“KaLynn, after looking through everything I saw you had some serious struggles at Ralston. But here you’ve done an excellent job, it was saying on your transcript that you weren’t going to have enough credits to graduate, but since I’ve reviewed what I have from Hempstead and from the little you’ve done here, I’ve come to realize if you get through your senior year with the classes you need, KaLynn, I have to say that your are back on track to graduate and even going to graduate with a few extra credits…” my whole body just burned with tears, excitement, relief, I couldn’t even find words to say. I was in tears. I did it. All my hard work had paid off… now here I sit typing this up with only 4 more months left of my senior year and proving to all the people who doubted me that I couldn’t do it… that I really did… and dang it’s a good feeling to have… it’s so worth the fight... Being proud in the fact that you never gave up in what you believed in… its gotten me this far.