Moving On by Malea

Moving On by Malea - November 2013 Scholarship Essay

At the end of my 8th grade year, I was beginning to prepare myself to start my High School career. During this time I was also coping with having divorced parents and trying to balance my life out. During my winter break of that year, the man who I called my father decided to walk out of my life and never come back. This change in my life left a huge impact on me and how I looked at things for a long time. But my life went on and the following August I started my freshman year of high school.

I didn’t talk to anyone about my dad walking out of my life, but I was continuously wondering “why?”. It began to affect my academics. My grades started slipping and I focused on things that made me forget about what had happened. Instead of focusing on my school work and building my education for college, I focused on my social life and going out with friends to keep things off of my mind. I began failing my classes and being in trouble with my parents a lot during my freshman year. Soon, my sophomore year rolled around and I started to realize I needed to kick it in gear, but the thought of my dad walking out still consumed me. My GPA did go up my sophomore year but not by much.

Finally, my junior year I decided I needed to tell someone about what happened to me. I talked to a counselor, and I got some help with the burden that was on my heart. I started focusing on school, taking more classes that would better prepare me for college, and coped with my dad walking out on me. Now in my senior year I’m taking dual credit and honors classes, keeping a high GPA, and working hard toward my career goal of going to medical school after undergraduate school.

What I learned in high school is that things are going to happen to you throughout life and sometimes you aren’t going to understand them or know why. I learned that I need to learn to let go when people hurt me and keep moving on with my life because I can’t let other people hold me back from succeeding. Today, I know I will never know the reason why my dad walked out on me, but I do know that he isn’t important to me anymore and what I went through made me the stronger, driven, girl I am today.