Stand Tall My Sweet Dandelion Girl

by Jimenez, Javier

  My mom broke her gaze from the window to look back at me. My mom had asked me, “How did the rest of high school go?”

  A few seconds passed and I said, “I tried my best,” as I presented a smile on my face. I felt a little odd in my chest. I was still smiling, but I felt that I was not present to partake in that expression of contentment. I don’t know why I didn’t feel happy. I was smiling at one of the greatest women in my life.

  I tried to repeat myself again, hoping this time I would feel more fulfilled or accomplished. “I tried my best,” I tried to profess, but my voice cracked in the first word. At the same time, I felt that my voice didn’t have enough breath. It became a whimper. I didn’t understand. I did try my best, so why did I have so much trouble telling my mom this? I noticed that my smile had now disappeared. Instead, my lips were stretched, and I had a long frown. Where had my smile gone? I didn’t even notice it leaving.

  I then felt the solid knot in my throat. As I struggled to catch my breath from the restricted air canal, I felt my eyes begin to burn. I realized that I was still staring at my mom. I looked away as I felt the tears coming down my face. I didn’t want to stare at my mother as I cried. I didn’t have control over it. ‘What caused this?’ I asked myself. And then I realized. It was because of that phrase. I tried my best.

  I was looking down again, holding my breath, biting my tongue. I let my hair cover my face as I positioned my face downward.

  Before I knew it, I was being pulled to the side. My mom had quickly sat down next to me, her arms embracing me, holding me. My face dug into her neatly ironed clothes. I let go. Unsteadily catching rapid quarter breaths, I cried.

  I tried my best.

  Chapter 3

  I felt the struggle to breathe. I felt so horrible: the turmoil inside me, short of breath, and a burning sensation in my eyes. I was still enveloped in my mother’s clothing, face planted into her shoulder.

  Looking back, I had never really thought critically about high school since I had left.

  She had been gone for such a long period of time, and all she asked was how my years continued there.

  This turmoil that I was feeling partially derived from my third year of high school. Junior year was when some of the more interesting parts of my life began unfolding.

  Every year, my school required all students to re-register and go through this whole process where our ID pictures were taken, payments were made, as well as a quick verification with our counselors regarding our class schedules.

  I would go to registration on my own, and I never really met up with friends so that I wouldn’t end up alone. It never really crossed my mind and I didn’t mind being alone. After all, I wasn’t too psyched about seeing my student class again; it was always a bit awkward seeing my peers and how they had changed. Or overhearing tiresome stories; some girl dying her hair twice over summer and how it went bad the first time, and how the lady who did it, didn’t do a good job. Or about how some guy watched a boxing match and who beat whom to a bloody pulp. I honestly don’t find much interest in these conversations, and they certainly didn’t excite me about coming back.

  Then there was also another predicament, where my peers changed their appearance, but there was also just as good of a chance that their personalities could have changed as well. Either way, both changes were enough to discourage me from conversing with old friends, and I did not want to find out if my classmates were still the same-old, same-old students that I knew or something different.

  Some students would bring their parents or older siblings, but at the time, it was only my grandma and I. I wouldn’t make her come, because I didn’t want to put her through any stress at her age, so I always volunteered to go on my own.

  Continuing on, when I arrived to my registration, I saw my group of close friends walking out. I smiled to them and waved.

  They walked over and one said, ‘Hey! You excited to see your classes? I got all the ones that I wanted.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I responded, ‘can’t wait to see. You know, registration always annoys me. It’s always too close to mid summer, right in the middle of everything.’ I let out an annoyed chuckle, ‘but what can I do?’

  After a bit of quick chitchat, we went our separate ways.

  Tables were stationed at the outside of our auditorium as students were entering in an orderly manner to get processed, checked, verified, and cleared.

  I finally got to the end, where my counselor showed me my schedule, making sure those were the classes I had signed up for the previous year. I nodded, and she printed me a copy of my courses and periods to come in the following weeks. I remember walking home as I stared at the paper I was holding. Lines and boxes were generically and neatly organized on the paper accompanied with the courses and names of instructors I would have. Letters and digits were placed to label and categorize everything. My name was located at the very top of the sheet of paper, but my eyes were more geared towards the classes that I was going to be taking.

  Our district was tediously different from other districts in the state. Our district forced high school students to take six periods of classes as opposed to other districts. My friend, Maribel, who I met in a hospital later on, was the one who first informed me about this. She told me, amongst other things, that students were given the opportunity to take fewer classes as they progressed through high school. At my school, Golden Heights High School, the counselors pushed six periods on their students, assuming that we would accept, and we did, never really asking questions. As of today, it still bothers me that I never asked why.

  I remember staring intently at my schedule, and there was a reason. I was taking three Advanced Placement courses that year. These courses are more challenging than honors courses, and are regarded to be college-level courses. Although they teach college course work, they must also meet the requirements of a state’s standards for high school classes. So it is very much like balancing a normal high school course with a college leveled course.

  I remember arriving home and placing my schedule somewhere on my desk for later, and I lay down on my cool bed as shadows from outside covered the room. The shadows swayed a little as a calm breeze brushed against the small maple tree just outside my room. I was a little bit tired from waking up earlier than usual to go through registration. Like I said, it was too close to mid summer.

  This calm feeling ended too soon, unfortunately. How do I explain the disaster? Where do I start? I did not like my junior year of high school at all. There were too many things going on that I was not particularly psyched about. Taking three AP courses that year was not one of my best decisions. It was a good decision to look appealing for colleges, but a not a fun decision for myself. I knew, and so did my counselor by my previous classes and grades, that I was capable of taking three AP classes. However, I wasn’t taking any of the eccentrically challenging AP courses that required born talent to receive an A in, but I still took demanding ones nonetheless.

  I have a certain view about the way educational structures mold students. From a child’s early age, parents enjoy talking about what their kids can do that makes them different from other children their age—talents or qualities that make them stand out. Parents enjoy seeing their kid participate in some sport when they are young, and if they have money, they can pay for said sports and have the time to take them to and from practice. If they are not in a sport, parents can find something else to brag about, like their talents as musicians or choral singers. I remember one of my mother’s neighbors would always excessively brag about her children in this way.

  Eventually, this all adds up. Kids are eventually expected to do things that make them stand out for the better, because that’s what is expected. Most parents love having an intelligent son or daughter, so a lot of kids grow up thinking that taking the harder classes means that they are smart, and they continue to engage in this process, starting from early ages in elementary school and stretching into high school. In all of my years of midd
le school, I took all of the honors courses that were available. My mother never pressured me, but she admired that I empowered myself.

  In all honesty, I don’t really remember when I stopped doing it for myself, or when it was done more for the college appeal. When I was in middle school, I would stare at the awkward “motivational” posters on how to succeed, and eventually go to a good university. I felt a little suffocated sometimes. How was an eleven-year old suppose to aspire to go and attend some school they had never seen—or any for that matter? What does an eleven-year old know about college? But society continued to tell me, “It’s what you should aim for.”

  I can’t help think about how empowering these advanced classes ended up being for me. Junior year was a point in my life where I began to know my limits. I had been given the liberty to challenge myself all I wanted before, but when I entered junior year, things became chaotic for me. These challenges were more difficult than I had expected. I soon learned that not all education is graspable, as I began having problems understanding material from my mathematics course and struggled to memorize the deeply detailed textbooks from my history course. These classes became a lot harder for me. For once in my life, information did not come as easily to me, nor did the hours of studying become as beneficial as I wanted them to be. Time was not on my side. Needless to say, I did not get straight A’s, as I had in some of the previous semesters.

  These classes weren’t as empowering as I would have wanted them to be. Instead, they showed me what I couldn’t do. They taunted my attempts to succeed. That’s the thing about academics. Students were expected to take more and more challenging courses. And to do less is seen as some sort of taboo in the academic world. It was like being in a circus as ring masters yelled at me to walk to the other side of a rope suspended at thirty feet in the air, ordering me to keep walking, as they fuel a flame right under the rope that seemed to grow larger the longer I stared at it. And once I would get to the other side, I was to walk back and forth, and repeat this performance as people clapped at me in some tight, pretty, half-revealing outfit. Clapping at every success I achieved. Clapping every time that I didn’t fall off my rope. And the next walk is more challenging for me somehow, in hopes of impressing others. Very empowering.

  Sometimes, after I would finish my homework late at night, I would think to myself. What happens after I graduate high school?

  I would picture a high school diploma being handed to me and how useless it really is in today’s market.

  I suppose that I was expected to get a Bachelor’s Degree. And in all honesty, it seems that graduating from a high school is not as gratifying as it would have been twenty years ago, because the pressure to continue with our education is largely expected and more vicious than ever. High school became just another stepping-stone now. That the battle didn’t end in the K-12 system. The battle continued.

  What happens when everyone expects so much from me? Do people expect me to stop at a Bachelor’s Degree? No. Would they expect a Master’s Degree from me? What if that’s not enough? A PhD? Then what? Am I supposed to be some great academic icon? Have books published, studies released, and research posted in databases? What did people expect from aspiring students? When would it be enough?

  I gritted my teeth together. My forehead was rooted into my mom’s shoulder. I felt anguish as my tears continued to roll down my face. Holding back my cries. I held onto my ribcage and stomach, as if I had been victimized. I felt inadequate, that I wasn’t enough for the world. My mom still held me, hugging my neck with one arm, the other gently placed on my arched back slowly rubbing me in a back and forth motion.

  I almost didn’t hear her as I slowly closed myself off from my surroundings. She whispered to me. “It’s okay. You’re okay, my little fighter.”

  Chapter 4

  After ten minutes, I finally purged myself of the anxiety that was my junior year. My mom told me to lie down once I stopped sobbing. She pulled the white sheets over me, and I lay in my bed again. I felt a blank, emotionless feeling inside of me. I suppose it’s one of the side effects from crying. I felt run-down.

  Through my blurry vision, I was able to make out my mom. She was now sitting near the small desk near the corner to the window. I pushed myself slightly upward, propping myself against my pillow.

  A moment passed, and I finally said “Mom.”

  “Yeah, sweetie?” she responded, as she repositioned herself on the chair adjacent to the desk.

  “Junior year,” I said with a scratched voice and a pause. I added “of high school” and got caught off mid-sentence.

  “You don’t have to tell me about it if you don’t feel comfortable. Don’t worry,” my mom asserted with kindness.

  “No, it’s okay,” I snuffled. “Junior year was not one of my highlights. It was a lot harder than I expected, Mom. I started having problems that I didn’t have before in my classes. Everything got a lot harder.”

  I saw her smile, and I had such a concerned face. I gave a small grin for a second and chuckled, as I watched her. She laughed a little, too, and said, “Yeah, everything gets harder in life, I suppose, but I think, to some extent, we all choose the degree of how challenging our lives are.”

  I couldn’t help but ask her, “In what ways?”

  “Well, you know how the stories go: we choose how hard we want our education to be. How much we ‘think’ we can handle.”

  “How we want to challenge ourselves too, right?” I added.

  “A little bit, because at the end of the day, no one forces us to take classes that we don’t want. Don’t you think? After all, it’s your life.”

  “Well, it’s because colleges like students who take challenging courses, especially when they do well in them. It’s how success is achieved. Through education.”

  “Well, what would you say is success for a person?”

  I took a pause and responded “Well, getting a degree.”

  My mom grinned again, but this time, she gave me an odd look. A look that emanated ‘you have a lot more to understand.’ “Sam, you have a lot to learn about what success is. You don’t necessarily have to be educated to find success. Although it is good to have broader perspective and understanding, you don’t necessarily need to have an education to be successful. What you are saying is that uneducated people can’t be successful. There are still first-generation college students for a reason, darling. There are parents out there who have never received an education past elementary school. And those parents sacrifice for their children. And you just can’t say that ‘education is the only route to being successful.’ Not everyone has the luxuries that you have: to be told that college is the only route to success. There are millions of people at the bottom of the socioeconomic class with very little education who are raising families. And you can’t say that they have never been successful and never will unless they get a degree. Success is finding happiness within you. Someone can be working two jobs on a minimum wage of eight dollars an hour and still be happy, regardless of their education.”

  I feel like a hypocrite, and most of all, guilty. I had narrowed my perspective and disregarded others. I had developed a mental fixation on what defined success and had ignored everyone else. At the same time, some part of me couldn’t just forget the years of study I had completed to become successful. I couldn’t just brush it off and say ‘yes, you are correct. My values that I have kept for so long had no meaning and there was no point in spending long committed hours to my studies.’

  “Is everything alright?” She interrupted, I was looking away from her, gritting my teeth with a rigid and distant expression on my face.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that I was being narrow-minded,” I responded, with an apologetic tone. “I don’t–“ I cut half way into what I was about to say. I tried again; I felt conflicted on what to think. I continued, “I just feel that” I began, as I tried to articulate something from my jumbled-up thoughts. “I just feel that I have sacrificed t
o much to not be successful. I contributed an immeasurable commitment to my studies just so that I could be compensated with neither significant nor tangible success.”

  “But Sam, what about all those awards you received in high school?” My mom asked me, trying to prove a point.

  “That’s the problem; I always needed more. The only ones I would be able to obtain were general honors awards, the ones they gave to students of above average academic performance. But I needed to be recognized as an individual of success. Be set apart from everyone.”

  I saw it; my mom was beginning to get frustrated. She was trying to make me understand, but she didn’t understand what high school was like.

  “Listen to me,” she said, “You were in a class of five hundred students, you are asking too much! You can only do so much to stand out.”

  “Explain that to the college applications that ask ‘how I impacted my community,’ ‘what national awards I have,’ or ‘how I expect to give back to the world.’ They asked for the world, Mom!”

  A mixture of sympathy now accompanied her frustrated expression. I felt so agitated and upset again. She felt pity for me. She could see the utter mess that I had become—some girl sitting in a white bed and white sheets, my hair falling downward, covering my face again, and the traces of tears drying up. And she, an experienced traveling businesswoman in a pretty blazer and dress, her hair neatly organized in a bun that hung on the back of her head with two chopstick looking objects obscurely located in the bun. She had her pretty gold colored earrings on and wore light makeup. She looked so organized with her sympathetic look; it made me squirm in my white sheets. She had her life together, and then there was me.

  I kept myself together as I drew consolation from my previous reasoning—that to find success, I had to challenge myself. Although I am not appreciative of the constant sacrificing, I always had to be one of the better students. It was my solution to answering the ‘how I impacted my community’, the ‘widely-recognized awards I have’, and ‘how I hope to impact the world.’