More Than Just a 3.8 by Courtney

More Than Just a 3.8 by Courtney - January 2016 Scholarship Essay

Walking down the blue and white checkered hallways through Apalachee High School, I give the familiar and too excited “Hey!” to everyone I make eye contact with. I am known as the head cheerleader, AP student, “goody-goody” Christian girl. I won homecoming queen, I was awarded a paper crown for senior superlatives with “Most Spirited” drawn across the front in a faded black Sharpie, I was that girl that every mother wanted her son to date, I was the teacher’s pet, I always had a pencil and paper handy. I was “perfect.” But what no one saw was how unhappy I was and I refuse to live that way this year. I will no longer go through the motions of making others feel great about themselves yet I constantly go to sleep lying on a tear stained pillow. This is my life and starting this year I am going to be in control of it.
I have had the honor and the disadvantage of growing up in the very small town of Bethlehem, Georgia, where all the teachers have your mother’s phone number and will not hesitate to call her at work to tell her how you failed a test and needed to study more. That was my life. I came home from school too often to the squeaky voice that belonged to my mother yelling at me for disappointing her. According to her and my father I would never get out of this town unless I had a perfect 4.0 GPA and an unimaginably high paying job. Knowing that this was far out of reach, I tried to gain her approval in other ways. I perfected my tumbling and became the captain of the varsity competitive cheerleading team, I was one of the most popular girls in school, I managed a 3.8 GPA with all honors or advanced placement classes, I was accepted into the college of my dreams. It was not until I looked around saw all these accomplishments and felt unsuccessful and empty, that I realized I was not living my life for myself. I was living solely to gain the love of my abusive, alcoholic father and the acceptance of my overbearing mother.
By doing all these things and fulfilling this New Year’s Resolution I will dedicate myself to a better education and the beauty behind learning new and in depth subjects. I cease to let another year slip out of my own hand’s. My life is no longer in the possession of those who play with it as if it were Play-Doh, constantly applying pressure and stretching the substance just to see how far it can go before it breaks. This year I will succeed, not because my entire future is on the line but because I deserve to feel successful. This year I will be more consumed with the beauty of learning instead of losing sleep over the constant weight of maintaining my GPA. This year I will be myself and be content if I am not as “popular” for that. This year, I will be happy.