What are hardships? Do hardships define who we are or what we will be? An early morning I smell the sweet aromatic brewing of my mother’s coffee. I sit down at the dining table and serve myself some pancakes with a fresh hot cup of coffee, as the steaming hot vapor emerges from the coffee. With a little rush, I proceed to finish my breakfast and put on my work uniform, a gray collared long-sleeve buttoned-down shirt, black dress pants, and some black polished shoes. I step outside to a cool breeze of wind and the rumbling of the exhaust of the car as it begins to regulate after remotely being turned on. As I make my way towards my job I roll down the driver’s side window allowing the morning breeze air to flow right into the rest of the car while it hits my face gracefully as If I were on a rollercoaster. The streets are quiet as there are few cars on the road and the sidewalks in complete emptiness which normally would be filled with people chatting. Within minutes I arrive to work and as I enter the driveway to the building my boss follows right behind me.

Julie Lavelle the director of culinary services a really tomboyish woman with blonde hair who could never be missed as she drove a white 2014 Dodge Challenger with blue fire wrap on both sides of the vehicle. She parks right beside me, and as I step out of the car so does she. I greet her, “Good morning Chef” She then says “Hi sweetie, how are you I had no idea you were working today”. We chatted for a few minutes about it and how I had picked up tons of shifts to help out. She made a comment that every day I am present fabulous and tons of positive things on work being great. Keeping this moment in mind I got through the long day which started at 6 o’clock in the morning till 8 at night. My final test dates were unorganized and last minute I ended up missing them that week but everything my management, boss, and regional bosses had told me about how great I am not only as a worker but person. It kept my spirits up and made me contemplate everything. At that moment I realized I was already great as a person but I still tried my absolute best to push for more. It made me realize I had let down my education by not allowing time to be there on my finals.  The point is we all go through hardships throughout our lifetime but it’s what we do as a result of it that really matters. That day I felt like a complete failure I had let down one of my pursued goals which for me was everything because I wanted to go graduate from college with a degree to later have a profession in medicine which at the time was to be a doctor.  I’m not the one to show emotion but inside I felt like the world was crumbling there was anger, hate, sadness, and disappointment flowing all over my body.

 

That same day we got out of work late which never happened while I was working on shift. My coworkers noticed something was wrong and they all asked, “Is everything all right, Brian? “. “Yes, everything is fabulously screwed up” I thought to say every time I was asked. I went straight home with the hopes of finishing the day off as if it were a normal regular day. I sat at the dining room table contemplating what was next, I would have to be paying for college with money from my own pocket the way things were academically for me. As crazy as it may seem but there is a very famous saying “There is a light at the end of every tunnel. Some tunnels just happen to be longer than others” by the lovely Ada Adams and I want to say I am the perfect advocate for this quote as I can correlate it with my life. Before I continue on I would like to firstly say I am not one who answers random phone calls, especially if it happens to be late at night and I always think of this precise moment on the fact that how extremely my life would’ve been. (to be continued)

– Brian Tenecela