It’s funny how life works.
There was a time when I couldn’t pass a writing test to save my life. Nine attempts. NINE. And every single time I walked out of that testing room, I carried a little more doubt about whether I belonged in college in the first place.
English wasn’t my first language. I had come to this country at seventeen, trying to figure out a whole new world while still trying to understand the one I had left behind.
And somehow, I was supposed to have it all figured out.
I didn’t.
But I kept showing up.
Looking back, I realize that so much of my life has been exactly that. Showing up when I didn’t feel prepared. Figuring things out as I went along. Making mistakes, sometimes the same ones more than once, and having to learn lessons I wish someone had taught me before life decided to teach them the hard way.
And here’s the thing about finally passing that test.
It didn’t magically make everything else easier.
I still had responsibilities. I still had insecurities. I still had parts of myself that were trying to survive things I hadn’t even learned to put into words.
But something had changed.
For the first time, I had proof that struggling with something didn’t necessarily mean I wasn’t capable of doing it.
Sometimes it simply meant I wasn’t there yet.
And I wish I could tell you that I carried that lesson into every other area of my life. That I immediately recognized my worth, stopped accepting less than I deserved, and started making decisions from a place of confidence.
But that wouldn’t be my story.
Because while I was learning how to fight for an education, I was still learning how to fight for myself.
And those, as it turns out, are two very different things.
I knew how to work hard. I knew how to endure. Lord knows I knew how to survive.
What I didn’t know was that surviving wasn’t supposed to be the entirety of my existence.
That lesson would take me years.
And a whole lot more than nine attempts.