Larissa is a senior in high school. After reading another post that I love to read daily (Clover Lane), I started to really think about how much I am missing the college application process with my daughter. I am not filling out applications, I am not visiting schools and I am not discussing majors.
I was raised by a single mother who paid for me to go through catholic school from 1st grade to 8th grade. It was a small school. My 8th grade class had 16 kids, 8 girls and 8 boys that all graduated together. I pretty much got straight A’s and school was very natural to me. When it came time for high school, my mother could no longer afford the catholic school so I went to a public school that required an entrance exam. I passed and that is where I went. It was a culture shock for me because my freshman class had 216 kids ! I remember my senior year like it was yesterday. How I loved to learn and still do. I went to a great high school academically but it certainly did not help me prepare for what would happen after high school even though it was college prep.
I have always had a desire to learn. I think that my desire to learn was actually a handicap for me because I wanted to learn it all and could not decide what I wanted to do with my life. My guidance counselor did not do anything to help me either. The only help I got was that stupid fill in the circles paper that asked you a bunch of questions and then said…you might want to look into…doctor, lawyer, cop, ect. That based strictly on what you answered. I didn’t have any personal meetings with counselors to talk about my future. And if it was up to me, I would do it all ! I needed someone to sit with me and talk about all of my interests and explain the degrees and where they could get me and what was required for degrees. I also wish that they had walked me through more financial aid options. But that was the past and well, you can’t go back.
So I graduated high school and worked full time. The following January I went to Katherine Gibbs for Executive Assistant for 6 months and started working. I got married, I had two children and then I got divorced. Then I went back to school. I had the desire to learn at that point in my life. I wanted to be back in school. I wish that I had the desire to go after high school but I don’t regret the decision not to go. I wasn’t ready. I wouldn’t have applied myself the way that I do now because I didn’t want it then.
I wish that I was going through the whole college application and college visiting with my daughter, Larissa. I wish that she had the desire to go to college. I wish that she had the desire for anything. She is determined to graduate high school and I am so thankful that she finally got on board with that. Her high school years have been a nightmare academically. She simply doesn’t finish work, hand in work or care about work. Her attitude sucks and it kills me to see this attitude from my daughter when I raised her better than that through teaching and experience. She needs to want it and she simply does not.
She is an artsy person. She had done theatre, she can paint like nobody’s business, she likes ceramics and broadcasting. She is all about the arts. Even with the drive for the Arts, she is not motivated to plan for her future. I am constantly asking her what she plans on doing and she doesn’t know. I ask her what she would like to do and she doesn’t know. The more I push, the harder it gets and the less information I get. She is a good kid. She doesn’t hang with the wrong crowd. She has a great heart for people. She just seems lost. I have been trying to guide her because my mother was not there for me in this way. I don’t want to tell her what to do, I just simply want to help her understand that you have to have a dream, a goal and then show her ways to get to her goal. But I can’t even get there. I can always keep praying that she has a change of heart along the way!
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