My mom left Kansas in April of 2001, I stayed behind and lived with my dad, step-mom and sister because starting high school with my friends and being with my then boyfriend was more important to me than anything else in the world. When my dad kicked me out and sent me packing to live with my mom in South Carolina only three or four months after she left, I didn’t ever think I was going to go back; at that time, I wasn’t and since then I never felt like I’d ever live in Kansas again and over time that was okay with me.

However, that may change in a month and I’m not exactly sure how to feel about it. As most of you know, I was accepted to Michigan State University which I had been pulling up my GPA/grades to get into for the past year; I was ecstatic about it when I received my admissions packet and couldn’t wait to get things going…however, I won’t be able to attend because of the finances. As an out of state student the cost of attendance is $35,838 for a year (two semesters), with $21,000+ of that coming from a loan my mom had to apply for which she was denied. With her being denied, there is no way I can cover the cost of MSU outside of what my financial aid covers and believe me, I’ve pushed, pulled, twisted, screamed and hollered until I made sure every last option was exhausted.

It upsets me greatly because all I wanted for the past year was to get into MSU, to be going to Michigan to finish my schooling and be closer to Alan and now the one thing I’ve looked forward too all this time isn’t going to happen. It doesn’t help either that since finding out about my acceptance that these little “signs” keep popping up everywhere as if to tell me “hey you’re suppose to be going to Michigan!”; people moving from MI to SC, people visiting from MI, me checking people out at work who are from MI, seeing people around here wearing MI school t-shirts, MI mentioned on the news and the TV in general. I don’t know if you believe in such things, but I do…and for the first time in what seems forever, Michigan feels right and it’s still not happening.

Originally, I had no back up plan - it was MSU or nothing. At the last minute, I applied to University of South Carolina amidst an argument that Alan and I got into which made me feel like it wasn’t going to work out. And had it not been for me checking University of Kansas website, I wouldn’t have seen that they were accepting late applications until July 1st, and so I applied again - both schools accepted me. What’s nice about USC and KU is that I can receive in-state tuition from both schools, USC because I graduated from high school here and I’ve lived here for six years and KU because my dad still lives in KS and I can get tuition rates because of that. However, I’m having a hard time dealing with my decision…

As of right now, KU is at the top of the list, I’m just waiting to get my tuition rates figured out and waiting for the loan stuff to be cleared on my moms end. I never wanted to attend USC, and I’ve wanted to get out of SC for years now so KU seemed like the best choice out of the two. But even that makes me nervous. I’m nervous because of how much Lawrence has changed since I last lived there, I’m nervous because it is a big change and a big move but that would be the same even if I was going to MSU. Most of all, however, I’ve come to realize that I’m really worried about my mom. For the first time, in eight years (since my parents divorce), my mom will be alone as my brother plans on going back to KS as well to attend K-State.

I know, in the end, that I can’t let my mom being alone affect something that will effect me for the rest of my life, but it still bothers me. It also upsets me that Alan can’t be apart of my change and that I have to do it all alone. In the end, I’ll make it through…because I know I’m strong enough to do so, but god I never thought that going off to college and leaving home for the first time would be such a stressful thing.

Tags: College, Education, Kansas, Michigan State, Moving, South Carolina

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 12th, 2008 at 4:11 am and is filed under Education, Family, Health/Fitness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.