It all started when I was called in to the death trap. The room where everyone has to decide who they want to become... The guidance office. A horrific room with cobwebs collecting in the corners, and smelly carpet laying everywhere. I was sitting there, questioning my future and what I want to do with my life. Suddenly, something horrible sparked inside of me. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. Something changed, and it caused me to never go back to who I used to be. 
I wake up to my dog, Coda, barking by my side. I roll over and observe my clothing nice and neatly laid out from the night before. I wipe the morning crust out of my eyes, and hop out of my bed ready for just another, boring Monday. I slide into my clothes and plod down the steps to the kitchen in my usual, fatigued and weary mood. As I munch down my cereal, I think about how plain today will most likely be. A regular crisp, fall day, where I enter the prison that is often called school. I embark on my daily stroll to school, which takes approximately 15 minutes from my house on Belwood Avenue. I make it into school and to my locker just in time for the homeroom bell to ring. I meet up with Lindsay in class and we chat for a while about if she got any acceptance letters from colleges yet. Of course, she did.. Sure I’m happy for her, but I mean, Yale! How? I express an incredulous smile to please her. Me? I probably won’t even be able to get one pleasing letter from even a college like University of Miami (a total party school and not right for me). Almost every single person in my family has attended University of Michigan. If I don’t apply or get in, I will be forced to live a life of pain. A huge feeling of disappointment will forever hang over my head with the weight of it on my shoulders. Therefore, even if I don’t know much about this school, it is my dream college and I have to get in.
The bell rings for second period as I awaken from the doze I took in algebra. I sit next to Ruth Devereaux, who smells like moldy cheese and looks like she was just taken out with the trash. I ask her for a pen because I forgot one, and I instantly regret my decision. She turns to me, nods aggressively, and leans over to her backpack releasing the pungent scent of her unwashed hair all over my already-distasteful aura. I observe the ratty and booger smothered pen she is about to hand me. I cannot deal with this horrid situation, so I say, “um… nevermind. I actually have a pen.” She looks disappointed that someone as popular as me, wouldn’t use her writing device. A direction written in stale chalk is up on the board that explains that we have a pop quiz. The assessment gets handed out by Judy, the teacher’s pet, and I answer all of the questions absent-mindedly, because history is without-a-doubt my best and favorite subject. “All right, everybody. Time is up!”, Mrs. Brown barks. She rings her buzzer three times just because telling us didn’t seem to be enough. We pass our sheets up the rows until they get to our crazy instructor.
The rest of the school day goes by in a blur, until I am called in to my advisor at the start of my last class. I walk in my usual dull way, leading from the tip of my nose to the guidance office. I see my counselor, Mr. White expecting me at the door. He makes eye contact with me from what feels like a mile away, when in reality, it is more like a foot away. He is has a strange demeanor, I suppose maybe because he is an 70-year-old widowed, hunchback who never succumbed to retirement. I greet him with a friendly, “Hi Mr. White. Am I here to discuss college applications?” He reeks of pinto beans and cat food, and says, “How did you know?” with a small chortle. I am disgusted by him, as always, but continue to go about our conference.
I step into his section of the office where people talk about what they want to do with their lives. Mr. White questions me with this incredibly difficult remark. I freeze. He stares deep into my soul after multiple moments of silence, and asks again, “What do you want to do with your life?” I must have seemed to be locked in a coma, because he began to look around frantically for the nurse’s telephone number. Without any more surmises as to what was going on, my counselor proposed a new question. “Um, what do you think your future looks like, Kate?”, I become motionless at this inquiry as well. However, I feel horrible for placing Mr. White in such an uncomfortable position, so I make an endeavor to respond. I say, “What options do I have?” My counselor hands over a sheet of paper with a complete inventory of career options. I scan over the list many times, looking at, “actor, teacher, athlete, doctor…” before realizing that I have no idea what I want to do. All these years leading up to my senior year of high school, and I couldn’t come to any conclusion as to who I wanted to be. Well, now is the time and I am clueless.
I am so shook up that I dash as quickly as possible, out of the office and straight out of the building. I hear people yelling and screaming my name for me to come back, but I don’t stop. I have to get away from that school as soon as possible in order to find myself. I am completely frazzled and end up running headlong into the heavily congested street only to find myself in the middle of the road with two cars flying directly at me. I gasp, realizing it is too late to turn back. I feel one car fly over my head, scrape my legs, arms, neck, and the other vehicle create wounds on separate parts of my body. Imagine. Hit by two cars and not knowing what your life means.
The next thing I know, I find myself on a stretcher in the back of an ambulance with a woman asking me, “Are you ok?” I finally conceive the thought that I am ok. At last know what I want to do with my life. I have the most urgent epiphany I have ever experienced. I must be an EMT. After seeing my whole life flash before my eyes, I come to the conclusion that I could help save others from experiencing that. I respond, “Yeah, I think so.” The EMTs load me into the hospital and into a bed. They mend the wounds on my right arm, left leg, chin, neck, wrists, and head. I am given multiple pain medications to help control the excruciating agony I am feeling. My parents and my 12-year-old brother, Dan are soon crowded around me with grimaces plastered onto their faces. My mom is handed the medical bill, and widens her eyes. By this expression, it seems as if I will have to have the pain meds withdrawn out of me, and the restraints removed! I express an amiable look to each of them trying to portray that I’m all right, and that I hope they will be able to pay the fee. If needed, I will help pay bill.
Later, Dan has a baseball game, so my dad takes him, but my mom stays. She brings me a warm cup of chicken noodle soup. She lays it on the bedside table and says, “Eat up, it’ll make you feel better.” After taking IB Biology and Earth Science, I know for a fact that that statement is incorrect. I am in the program for full IB, which means that I might be eligible for valedictorian. Now, wouldn’t that look good on a resume? However, I still consume the soup, because I know it will warm my insides and ease my mind. I wonder if maybe my mother didn’t know what she wanted to do with her life until later on, like me. So I ask her, “Mom, did you know exactly what you wanted to do from a young age, or did it take you a while to figure it out?” She stares at me as if she is looking directly into my head. She always says I am an old soul. Maybe some kids my age don’t think of things like this, so she responds, “Not exactly. I told you I went to college directly after high school, right?” I nod, and she continues, “Well, that’s not completely true. My senior year of high school, I had no clue as to who I wanted to be. It seemed so terrifying because everyone else already knew for themselves. I was still going back and forth between multiple occupations, until I was 20. All of my friends and peers had already left to pursue their dreams at college. Meanwhile, I was living in my parents basement, still coming up with options. I remember that on one Tuesday, I wrote a letter to my best friend who moved to Italy. I informed her on all that was going on in my town, America, and my life. Letter after letter I wrote, I began to really enjoy myself. I noticed that I had found a passion: Journalism.”
She seems to be admitting to me way more than she ever has done before, so I let her continue. “I felt like a major disappointment to your grandparents, because they had wanted me to do something great with my life. Soon, I applied to ten different schools without even notifying my parents of it yet. Whenever they questioned me about college, I always replied ‘I’m working on it.’ Day after day, week after week, I would wait for replies from the schools I applied to. At last, I received an acceptance letter from Michigan, and was ecstatic. Your grandparents had been saving up money for the past decade, so I could achieve my goals, but more realistically… their goals. I finally told them that I got into one of the best schools in the US, and they were unbelievably proud of me, and agreed to pay the tuition without a single doubt in their minds. Shortly after, I headed for Michigan! They had incredibly high expectations for me, so getting into such a prestigious school, made them very glad to be my parents.”
I shake my head in complete disbelief as I say, “But you always told us that you went straight to college after high school like everyone else.” Apparently, she has told everyone this lie, except for my father. I feel so insanely accepted now because my mom and I have never had a very close relationship. I believe that if she can confess such a large secret to me, then maybe I can tell her that I know what I want to do. I stutter out, “I, I, think I know what I want to do.” Shocked that I hadn’t already known, “Oh, okay. What is it?” I inform her that I want to be an Emergency Medical Technician, and she seems surprised, but relieved that I am so certain about my choice. “Now that I know what I want, can we send in applications?” The smile on her face is completely indescribable. She just lights up and is so exceptionally happy for me, “Of course.” I see tears welling up in her eyes, because clearly, she knows the struggle of finding yourself.
The next day, my mom visits me at the hospital, with my laptop, several books and multiple papers in hand. She sits down right next to me on the bed, not paying any attention to the slings and restraints I am heavily dependent on. The first thing she voices to me is, “Let’s get started.” I am extremely overwhelmed by the amount of supplies she brings because apparently they are each very necessary. She starts filling out forms about my capabilities and strengths. Then, I see her wander over to the documents regarding my medical bill. Clearly observing me watching her, my mom switches back to the college application site because she doesn’t want me to worry. I read over the two college admission essays I wrote months ago, so I would be prepared. After few minor edits, I am fully confident in my writing pieces. The next day, we look at colleges that would support me and educate me in the the best ways possible. We use the CommonApp website to ensure the schools are the right fit and finally fill out each submission. As we click “send”, I know what a huge life decision I am about to make. The last submission to my dream school (my parent’s dream) is about to be submitted. I hit “send” for University of Michigan, and feel a rush of apprehension wash over me. Even so, I am fully confident that pursuing a career as an EMT is who I want to be, and this school, is where I should go.
Weeks later, I make it home from school after recently returning to continue my education. Everyone is upstairs in Dan’s room. I check the mail, as I do every day to see if I got a response from a college I applied to. Up until now, I have never received a letter. My heart stops as I take out the foiled paper from the mailbox. I unfold the parchment, and read, “Congratulations Kate Winfield, you have been accepted into the University of Michigan.” I can’t maintain my composure. A part of me wants to scream, and the other part wants to cry. The school everyone wants me to get into, the only one I visited after being released from the hospital, has accepted me. However, with my medical bills still trying to be payed off, I don’t know if attending college will be possible. Either way. I dash up the stairs to my brother’s room to inform everyone.
Then, my dad says, “I lost my job, Kate.”
“So that means, with the medical bills to be payed off...”
“College is a maybe.”
I freeze in my tracks, “ok.”
With my father losing his job,l how will we ever be able to pay off the medical bills, nevermind college? After all my hard work, college is a maybe. After getting into the family school, college is a maybe. After being struck by two cars, college is a maybe. After finally deciding who I want to be, college is a maybe.