My Journey to Becoming a High School Graduate
By Melanie Izel Gómez
Hello everyone, this is Melanie Izel Gómez, and this is my story.
My story starts with what school was like for me growing up. School for me was nice. I went to Bayvale Elementary here in Augusta, Georgia. I had a lot of friends, and school was very interesting. I loved waking up and going to school. I got in trouble a few times, but I was a good student. In first grade, I discovered what I wanted to be when I grew up. Then came middle school. I only did sixth grade in person, and the rest I did online. It was pretty good, and I enjoyed it. Now here we are, and I am trying my best in high school.
Growing up, my dream career was to become a doctor. I started liking helping people and helping around my family when they got hurt. I used to love helping out. In first grade, we had to dress up as what we wanted to be when we grew up, and I went as a doctor. Since then, being a doctor was always on my mind.
I stopped attending school when I was in ninth grade, at the beginning of my first year in high school. I started going through some family stuff. My parents got divorced, and that pretty much affected me. When my parents split, I ended up going with my mom. School was still my priority, but I was also going through some emotional stuff, and it made me lose focus on being in school.
My career changed when I realized I loved traveling, meeting new people, and seeing new places. Me and my family used to travel almost two times a year to different places and different states, and I loved it. I also love helping people, so I researched travel nursing. That is something I love because it combines both of the things I love to do. I can travel to new places, but I can also help people. Since then, travel nursing has been my dream job. I find it fun, and it is something I like doing at the same time.
I never attempted the GED because my dream was to get my high school diploma. During my time in public school, I wish teachers would pay more attention and be more understanding of students, especially if their first language is something different from English. In my experience, public school was not the best for me during elementary school. I had one teacher who physically abused me because I was different from the other kids. She used to hit my desk with a ruler, and she used to hit me. She used to make fun of us if we did not say a word correctly or pronounce it correctly just because we were Hispanic. I wish my experience was different because I loved elementary school. It is where I learned who I wanted to be and learned different languages. I wish the principals would have paid more attention whenever we tried to explain things to them about the teachers, or just watched more carefully who they accepted to work with kids. I would not want other kids experiencing what I experienced just because they are different from other kids.
Growing up, I always had anxiety, and I could not control it. That is another reason why I never attempted the GED. My anxiety was always worse during tests or exams. What gave me the most anxiety during an exam or test was when I saw other students finishing before I did. I would get more anxious, thinking, “Am I going to be able to finish?” or “Am I going to have enough time to do it?” That was something that triggered my anxiety more, but I have learned how to control it during the past few years. I still get a little nervous when it comes down to tests, but not as much.
One of my greatest fears about returning to get my high school diploma was not being able to graduate. I feel like I have been through so much. Getting my high school diploma and returning to school is something I want to continue doing for my career and my plans, but I was also scared that I was too far behind and would not be able to accomplish as much as I wanted to during high school. I was also afraid I was going to graduate late. One of my fears was graduating with my youngest brother.
I have two of my biggest supporters during my diploma journey. The first is my cousin, who has always been there with me through the bad and good times. She has been with me through my appointments and surgeries, and she stayed with me during nights at the hospital. She has always been there supporting my decisions and helping me get through my roughest times. My second biggest supporter is my stepmother. She just came into my life, but she has been one of my biggest helpers and supporters. She is like a second mother to me. Honestly, she has helped me through a lot, and I really appreciate those two people being there for me because I know that regardless of how rough times are, they are always going to be there and I can always count on them.
Especially my cousin. I love her so, so much. I can say my whole family has been there for me, but not as much as these two people. There is also one more person I want to include. He has been so helpful and so good to me. He is there whenever I need him, whenever I need to tell him something, or whenever I just need to let everything go. I can cry on his shoulder, and I know he will be there supporting me. I really appreciate those three people coming into my life and being here with me during my hardest times and for not leaving my side.
My plan after becoming a high school graduate is to enroll in Augusta Tech and begin my nursing or travel nursing career as soon as I possibly can. I want to get started on my future plans and get back on track with what my plans were before I got sick. I want to do my hardest to complete everything and get to the place where I want to be, start my future, get my dream job, feel good about myself, and do everything I wanted to do before my life changed.
Looking back on my life, something that I am proud of myself for is how far I have come, even though my life has changed so much. I am proud of how I am doing. I know it may not seem like a lot, but the littlest things in my life have a special value to me. My life changed from one day to another. I got the bad news that I was very ill, and I was almost dying. Doctors had told me that from the minute I found out. A lot of my family members did not believe I was going to make it through, but I did.
I know I am not doing my best every day, but I am so much better than I was at the very beginning, and I am proud of myself for continuing on with my life, getting better, and working on myself. A lot of my parents and my family do not see it. They just see the bad side of me being sick, being depressed or sad, or just wanting to be in bed. But for me, getting up is something I am proud of. It is just me trying to work through those days. Sometimes it is a process for me to get up from bed, and I am proud of myself because I get up even during my worst days.
I still get up. I still try. I still put a smile on my face.
I try to continue through everything, and that is something I am proud of. It makes me feel good deciding to keep going with life because just because my life changed does not mean that I have to stop doing what I like to do. I continue to do it and put a smile on my face and make myself feel better. What I am mostly proud of that no one sees is that I still keep going no matter what I am going through. No matter what has happened in my life, I still keep pushing and putting effort into myself to get better.
The thing that has kept me going through my journey is my sibling, my brother, and just the fact that I still want to be here. I have so many things planned for me and so much future ahead of me. I still want to continue and try my best to get all my goals in life done and completed. Just because I am going through a rough situation or a rough time does not mean my life is over. I have to keep pushing and keep looking forward to the good days. Having my brother with me is something that keeps me going. I want to continue seeing him grow up, seeing him graduate, seeing him get married, and just being there for him. Mostly, I want to be there for myself. That is something that keeps me going no matter how hard life is, how hard everything is on me, or how heavy it feels. I still want what is best for me.
Getting my high school diploma means more to me than just a certificate. Some regular high school kids might think, “Oh, I graduated from high school,” but for me, it is like a reward. It is like saying, “You did this.” No matter how rough your life became from day to night, you had a switch in your life. You had appointments. You had to be in the hospital. You had to get blood transfusions, go to dialysis, and go into surgeries. You still managed to finish high school and earn your diploma. You still continued with school rather than just quitting and dropping out. You still decided to keep pushing and earn your high school diploma.
It will be a reward for me. It will be like saying, “I did this. I got my high school diploma despite all the bad things that happened to me.” I was still able to earn my high school diploma and graduate.
There is a message I would love to give to other students who feel like giving up. For those who feel like giving up, I understand you. At some point in my life, I felt like giving up. Life did not make sense anymore to me after finding out that I was ill and sick. Yes, your life changes. You may have to do a lot of different things that other kids do not have to do. But just because you are sick, or you are going through a rough family time or situation, does not mean you have to give up.
Life still shines. Life still continues.
It is a hard path, but at some point, you will look back and be grateful for how far you have come after everything you have been through. So if you ever feel like giving up, just look ahead and look at the bright side and the future you planned before giving up. I know it is hard and rough, but when you get through it and start focusing on yourself instead of trying to focus on other people, you will find peace. You will be happy because you did it.
At one point, you may have thought you were not going to make it or that this was not meant for you. But when you get to a good point in your life, you will look back and see how far you have come. You will be so proud of yourself that you did not give up. Regardless of how hard things were, you still kept pushing, kept going, and helped yourself.
The person and the moments that have shaped who I am today include my cousin. She has never let me down. She is always there pushing me, helping me get through things, and telling me everything will be fine. She is there when I need a hug or when I need a moment. She has always been by my side regardless of how bad I may feel sometimes. I feel like having her has really shaped my life and who I am right now. If it were not for her, I feel like I would have given up a long time ago when I first found out I was sick. It was so hard for me doing everything alone until she was there with me. She helped me get through it. She goes with me to every appointment. She does not leave my side regardless of what I am going through. I appreciate her so, so much for never leaving my side when I am in my deepest, drowning moments.
If I could speak to my younger self, I would tell her that I am proud of her. I am proud of the person you have become. You are one of the strongest people I know. You have been through so much, and you are still pushing through. You are still getting through your hardest moments. Do not give up. Never look back on the things you have done. Regardless of how bad things are, keep pushing. Everything will be just fine. Life still shines regardless of how bad things may feel. You are beautiful. You are doing great. You are still in high school. You are fighting. You are doing your best to keep going, and I am proud of you.
I want people to remember me for my strength. I would love for people to remember how strong I was and how far I came. I have been through some of the roughest times. Yes, I am still going through them, but I have managed to keep pushing. I want people to remember that, regardless of how bad things were, I still managed to find a way to put a smile on my face and laugh. I was always there helping others when they really needed it. I have always been the type of person who loved having fun, seeing the bright side of things, and putting a smile on people’s faces when they really needed it.
Finding out I was sick was one of the roughest times in my life. At one point, I wanted to give up. I wanted to stop my treatment and just wait until death got me. Yet I still fought through everything. I still keep going. A lot of people can do the same if they are going through a rough time or feel like giving up. Just continue to push.
Life still shines, and you have a long time ahead.
Through my experience and everything I have been through, I feel like God chooses people who are stronger than they think they are. God does not put you in a position where He knows you are not going to be able to do it. It took me a while to understand this, but through everything that has been going on with me, my way of seeing things has changed. There were a lot of things I did not know I was capable of. I never felt like I was strong enough. Everything in my life switched from being a healthy girl to having kidney disease and having to go to dialysis. It was something very new to me, and I was scared.
But I learned so many things by experiencing something I never thought I would experience. I learned how to value people who are going through rough times more because now I understand what that feels like. You learn how to help people and understand them more when you have gone through something yourself. I feel like God put me in this situation to teach me a lesson that everything in life is hard, but also to help me understand and know myself better.
I am stronger than I ever thought I was.
He will never leave your side. He will always be there helping you go through everything. So if you ever go through some of the things I have gone through, just know that you are not alone. God will always be next to you.
Always remember to love yourself. Always listen to your heart.
My story starts with what school was like for me growing up. School for me was nice. I went to Bayvale Elementary here in Augusta, Georgia. I had a lot of friends, and school was very interesting. I loved waking up and going to school. I got in trouble a few times, but I was a good student. In first grade, I discovered what I wanted to be when I grew up. Then came middle school. I only did sixth grade in person, and the rest I did online. It was pretty good, and I enjoyed it. Now here we are, and I am trying my best in high school.
Growing up, my dream career was to become a doctor. I started liking helping people and helping around my family when they got hurt. I used to love helping out. In first grade, we had to dress up as what we wanted to be when we grew up, and I went as a doctor. Since then, being a doctor was always on my mind.
I stopped attending school when I was in ninth grade, at the beginning of my first year in high school. I started going through some family stuff. My parents got divorced, and that pretty much affected me. When my parents split, I ended up going with my mom. School was still my priority, but I was also going through some emotional stuff, and it made me lose focus on being in school.
My career changed when I realized I loved traveling, meeting new people, and seeing new places. Me and my family used to travel almost two times a year to different places and different states, and I loved it. I also love helping people, so I researched travel nursing. That is something I love because it combines both of the things I love to do. I can travel to new places, but I can also help people. Since then, travel nursing has been my dream job. I find it fun, and it is something I like doing at the same time.
I never attempted the GED because my dream was to get my high school diploma. During my time in public school, I wish teachers would pay more attention and be more understanding of students, especially if their first language is something different from English. In my experience, public school was not the best for me during elementary school. I had one teacher who physically abused me because I was different from the other kids. She used to hit my desk with a ruler, and she used to hit me. She used to make fun of us if we did not say a word correctly or pronounce it correctly just because we were Hispanic. I wish my experience was different because I loved elementary school. It is where I learned who I wanted to be and learned different languages. I wish the principals would have paid more attention whenever we tried to explain things to them about the teachers, or just watched more carefully who they accepted to work with kids. I would not want other kids experiencing what I experienced just because they are different from other kids.
Growing up, I always had anxiety, and I could not control it. That is another reason why I never attempted the GED. My anxiety was always worse during tests or exams. What gave me the most anxiety during an exam or test was when I saw other students finishing before I did. I would get more anxious, thinking, “Am I going to be able to finish?” or “Am I going to have enough time to do it?” That was something that triggered my anxiety more, but I have learned how to control it during the past few years. I still get a little nervous when it comes down to tests, but not as much.
One of my greatest fears about returning to get my high school diploma was not being able to graduate. I feel like I have been through so much. Getting my high school diploma and returning to school is something I want to continue doing for my career and my plans, but I was also scared that I was too far behind and would not be able to accomplish as much as I wanted to during high school. I was also afraid I was going to graduate late. One of my fears was graduating with my youngest brother.
I have two of my biggest supporters during my diploma journey. The first is my cousin, who has always been there with me through the bad and good times. She has been with me through my appointments and surgeries, and she stayed with me during nights at the hospital. She has always been there supporting my decisions and helping me get through my roughest times. My second biggest supporter is my stepmother. She just came into my life, but she has been one of my biggest helpers and supporters. She is like a second mother to me. Honestly, she has helped me through a lot, and I really appreciate those two people being there for me because I know that regardless of how rough times are, they are always going to be there and I can always count on them.
Especially my cousin. I love her so, so much. I can say my whole family has been there for me, but not as much as these two people. There is also one more person I want to include. He has been so helpful and so good to me. He is there whenever I need him, whenever I need to tell him something, or whenever I just need to let everything go. I can cry on his shoulder, and I know he will be there supporting me. I really appreciate those three people coming into my life and being here with me during my hardest times and for not leaving my side.
My plan after becoming a high school graduate is to enroll in Augusta Tech and begin my nursing or travel nursing career as soon as I possibly can. I want to get started on my future plans and get back on track with what my plans were before I got sick. I want to do my hardest to complete everything and get to the place where I want to be, start my future, get my dream job, feel good about myself, and do everything I wanted to do before my life changed.
Looking back on my life, something that I am proud of myself for is how far I have come, even though my life has changed so much. I am proud of how I am doing. I know it may not seem like a lot, but the littlest things in my life have a special value to me. My life changed from one day to another. I got the bad news that I was very ill, and I was almost dying. Doctors had told me that from the minute I found out. A lot of my family members did not believe I was going to make it through, but I did.
I know I am not doing my best every day, but I am so much better than I was at the very beginning, and I am proud of myself for continuing on with my life, getting better, and working on myself. A lot of my parents and my family do not see it. They just see the bad side of me being sick, being depressed or sad, or just wanting to be in bed. But for me, getting up is something I am proud of. It is just me trying to work through those days. Sometimes it is a process for me to get up from bed, and I am proud of myself because I get up even during my worst days.
I still get up. I still try. I still put a smile on my face.
I try to continue through everything, and that is something I am proud of. It makes me feel good deciding to keep going with life because just because my life changed does not mean that I have to stop doing what I like to do. I continue to do it and put a smile on my face and make myself feel better. What I am mostly proud of that no one sees is that I still keep going no matter what I am going through. No matter what has happened in my life, I still keep pushing and putting effort into myself to get better.
The thing that has kept me going through my journey is my sibling, my brother, and just the fact that I still want to be here. I have so many things planned for me and so much future ahead of me. I still want to continue and try my best to get all my goals in life done and completed. Just because I am going through a rough situation or a rough time does not mean my life is over. I have to keep pushing and keep looking forward to the good days. Having my brother with me is something that keeps me going. I want to continue seeing him grow up, seeing him graduate, seeing him get married, and just being there for him. Mostly, I want to be there for myself. That is something that keeps me going no matter how hard life is, how hard everything is on me, or how heavy it feels. I still want what is best for me.
Getting my high school diploma means more to me than just a certificate. Some regular high school kids might think, “Oh, I graduated from high school,” but for me, it is like a reward. It is like saying, “You did this.” No matter how rough your life became from day to night, you had a switch in your life. You had appointments. You had to be in the hospital. You had to get blood transfusions, go to dialysis, and go into surgeries. You still managed to finish high school and earn your diploma. You still continued with school rather than just quitting and dropping out. You still decided to keep pushing and earn your high school diploma.
It will be a reward for me. It will be like saying, “I did this. I got my high school diploma despite all the bad things that happened to me.” I was still able to earn my high school diploma and graduate.
There is a message I would love to give to other students who feel like giving up. For those who feel like giving up, I understand you. At some point in my life, I felt like giving up. Life did not make sense anymore to me after finding out that I was ill and sick. Yes, your life changes. You may have to do a lot of different things that other kids do not have to do. But just because you are sick, or you are going through a rough family time or situation, does not mean you have to give up.
Life still shines. Life still continues.
It is a hard path, but at some point, you will look back and be grateful for how far you have come after everything you have been through. So if you ever feel like giving up, just look ahead and look at the bright side and the future you planned before giving up. I know it is hard and rough, but when you get through it and start focusing on yourself instead of trying to focus on other people, you will find peace. You will be happy because you did it.
At one point, you may have thought you were not going to make it or that this was not meant for you. But when you get to a good point in your life, you will look back and see how far you have come. You will be so proud of yourself that you did not give up. Regardless of how hard things were, you still kept pushing, kept going, and helped yourself.
The person and the moments that have shaped who I am today include my cousin. She has never let me down. She is always there pushing me, helping me get through things, and telling me everything will be fine. She is there when I need a hug or when I need a moment. She has always been by my side regardless of how bad I may feel sometimes. I feel like having her has really shaped my life and who I am right now. If it were not for her, I feel like I would have given up a long time ago when I first found out I was sick. It was so hard for me doing everything alone until she was there with me. She helped me get through it. She goes with me to every appointment. She does not leave my side regardless of what I am going through. I appreciate her so, so much for never leaving my side when I am in my deepest, drowning moments.
If I could speak to my younger self, I would tell her that I am proud of her. I am proud of the person you have become. You are one of the strongest people I know. You have been through so much, and you are still pushing through. You are still getting through your hardest moments. Do not give up. Never look back on the things you have done. Regardless of how bad things are, keep pushing. Everything will be just fine. Life still shines regardless of how bad things may feel. You are beautiful. You are doing great. You are still in high school. You are fighting. You are doing your best to keep going, and I am proud of you.
I want people to remember me for my strength. I would love for people to remember how strong I was and how far I came. I have been through some of the roughest times. Yes, I am still going through them, but I have managed to keep pushing. I want people to remember that, regardless of how bad things were, I still managed to find a way to put a smile on my face and laugh. I was always there helping others when they really needed it. I have always been the type of person who loved having fun, seeing the bright side of things, and putting a smile on people’s faces when they really needed it.
Finding out I was sick was one of the roughest times in my life. At one point, I wanted to give up. I wanted to stop my treatment and just wait until death got me. Yet I still fought through everything. I still keep going. A lot of people can do the same if they are going through a rough time or feel like giving up. Just continue to push.
Life still shines, and you have a long time ahead.
Through my experience and everything I have been through, I feel like God chooses people who are stronger than they think they are. God does not put you in a position where He knows you are not going to be able to do it. It took me a while to understand this, but through everything that has been going on with me, my way of seeing things has changed. There were a lot of things I did not know I was capable of. I never felt like I was strong enough. Everything in my life switched from being a healthy girl to having kidney disease and having to go to dialysis. It was something very new to me, and I was scared.
But I learned so many things by experiencing something I never thought I would experience. I learned how to value people who are going through rough times more because now I understand what that feels like. You learn how to help people and understand them more when you have gone through something yourself. I feel like God put me in this situation to teach me a lesson that everything in life is hard, but also to help me understand and know myself better.
I am stronger than I ever thought I was.
He will never leave your side. He will always be there helping you go through everything. So if you ever go through some of the things I have gone through, just know that you are not alone. God will always be next to you.
Always remember to love yourself. Always listen to your heart.