I have spent the past two months trying to figure out why it is that I can't ever seem to have my life in order. These past four years have gone by and although it seems as though I have progressed in spite of difficulties and some self-inflicted hardships, truly I have not. In May, I looked around as my friends graduated and some were busy establishing their life after college. I too should have been wearing a cap and gown. Truly, with the amount of credits I stated school with and the amount of semesters I have been here I should have graduated a year early. Only here I am helping my younger sister start school and telling the world that I still have one year left to graduate and even that is untrue. 
I don't know what has gone on in my head or in my life to get me to the  point that I am at today, but I look back and lok in the mirror and I cannot find myself. I am the kid who started taking advanced courses in 4th grade. I surpassed my peers every year in almost every subject. I enrolled in an intensive program during high school designed to guarantee my entrance and success at a top University anywhere in the world. Finances and life dictated that I wind up at the local State University. I walked in with a semester and a half worth of credits and my mind made up to achieve a 4.0 my frehman year and find a way to transfer to my dream school. Somewhere between the second week of class and the end of my Freshman year my life ttok a terrible turn and it began my scholastic demise, which from the way I have been raised, also must mean my life's demise. I joined a sorority, I lost all intert in my classes ( I deemed most of them too easy to merit my attention and my peers to stupid to merit conversation), I was incredibly unhappy and found "better" ways to occupy my time. I slept in, dated, want out to the club, I did everything imaginble to avoid going to class or dealing with school. My sophomore year I decided that my lack of interest was beginning to cost me and tried to buckle down, I did great one semester and terrible the next, and lost my scholarship. I decided that what I needed to do was work two or three jobs, save up for tuition and go back with a renewed attitude. I stayed out for a year, came back did great one semester, did badly the next, geared myself up for another great semester, but my habit of skipping class and not getting any assignments done and trading that time for good times stuck with me and I was excluded from school.

Now, I am excluded, hiding this from my parents, and trying to fill out appeal forms hoping and praying to be allowed back in to school. I have now missed the two summer semesters I needed to take in order to graduate by May and I cannot figure out how to tell my parents that their star child who should have graduated early in 2006 or on time in 2007 may not graduate until August of 2008 if at all.

In the meantime my academic failures destroyed the trust my father had in me. Stressed my relationship with my mother, caused the downfall of my sorority's chapter, and haunts me as I try to keep up appearances as someone who is trying to do something with her life, but I am not, at all. I workfor my father and leave "to go to class" in the middle of the day, I go home and sleep the failure away, go back to work. All my friends and family, and even my boyfriend believe my facade, and I don't know where else to turn or how the hell, with my brains and my motivation and love for knowledge I have ended up with more Fs on my transcript than credits and trying to cover it all up. How does one turn back time and regain one's self back? How can I fix the mess I made for four years in 8 months? Where do I go from here?

Everyone thinks that I am an incredible woman and I know I am when I do what my life dictates that I do. When I do things right, I work full time, I go to school full time, I pull off As in my classes, I am involved with my family, I am involved in school, I am involved in my community, and I take care of all my financial responisbilities. However, I have few semesters where I am myself.

The rest of the time I work part time, don't go to school at all, find myself in debt and avoiding people. How do I make myself be myself? or at least find the middle ground between success and miserable failure?