I’ve always been proud of being a good student. Don’t get me wrong though, I’m not the sort of person who obsesses over her grades. I mean, it’s satisfying to see that perfect line of A’s at the end of the semester, but that’s not why I like being a student. You could say academia draws me in. There’s just something so appealing about there not being a right choice to make, a truth to end all truths; to be able to consider everything while committing to nothing always seemed so mature somehow. When we were little, we were always told there were two sides to every story after all.
Academia is kind of like that. There are millions of theories and frameworks through which we can interpret the world around us, but they’re all related to each other in just as many ways. It’s a giant web made not of knowledge but of understanding, and the moment of understanding is addicting. It’s the moment the “why” behind a math problem clicks, and suddenly there are dozens of other ways it can be solved unfurling before you. It’s the moment where the argument of the paper you’re reading runs into the other arguments you’ve read about before, into the experiences you’ve had, into the people you’ve discussed it with. Oh, you think, I see you. Then, I want others to see you too.
So yeah, I’ve always been a good student. I’ve known this all my life. I was such a good student, in fact, that my teachers back in high school were always kind to me. They knew how much I cared, so they’d let it slip when I occasionally missed an assignment (as long as I handed it in later, of course), or let me go to the nurse’s office when I was overwhelmed and couldn’t stop crying. I was a good student, so it was okay if I was a little weird. Those moments just became a part of everyday life.
Soon enough, it was time for me to do what we often expect of good students here in the island: go off to a fancy university somewhere in the United States with a big fat scholarship to cover the cost — it was only natural if I wanted to continue learning. My college of choice was in New York, only a few hours north of the city, and so off I went that first August after graduating.
I’d never seen a big tree before. When I was little, I thought my grandmother’s mango tree was the largest thing in the world. After I got older, I thought it was just another big thing. It wasn’t until I stepped foot on campus that I realized how horribly wrong I was. I remember staring up into the branches above me and only feeling a dizzying sort of fear, the sort you feel when you look down from a tall place and wonder what it would be like to accidentally slip. I had not known a tree could be so massive and so old it made your brain switch the earth and the sky around. My grandmother’s mango tree didn’t seem so big then.
It wasn’t the last thing I was wrong about. Maybe the earth and the sky did switch places, because only a few hours later I would realize that the distant expanse of light blue sky that I saw contrasting the clouds was not the sky at all, but the spine of the Catskill Mountains stretching into the sky like a satisfied feline. A few months later, I would see snow for the first time, and I stared in wonder at the perfect snowflakes as they melted into my sweater. I hadn’t realized that you could actually see the fractals with your naked eyes. I’d thought it was some special effect magicked up to sell more Grinch toys.
It wasn’t only nature that I didn’t understand, though. It was soon made clear to me that the people around me were different from what I was used to as well. After spending my childhood as an apathetic and unlikable child, I had finally developed some better social skills in high school — or so I thought. Turns out, I had just figured out some of the patterns of Puerto Rican social etiquette. I was not prepared for New York, where it seemed like my foot lived perpetually in my mouth. I spent most of my time there deeply confused. The friendly ribbing so common here wasn’t appreciated there, and, for some reason, they were always smiling even if they didn’t really care about what you talked about. Or maybe they did care, and a frozen, polite, and completely inscrutable expression is how they showed it. Most other people didn’t seem to have trouble adjusting, but I felt like I was always teetering off the edge of a cliff. The doubt began to creep into every single interaction I had, then, and my head would be a constant play-by-play of all the possible interpretations of both mine and other’s actions.
The fact was: I simply wasn’t good enough. I needed to understand where I was going wrong, and I was killing myself for it. I would either sleep for 12 hours straight, or not sleep a wink. I was constantly nauseous, uneasy, and in pain. I became bitter and snappy, which only made my anxiety worse. I was resentful and desperate for approval. I was terribly homesick, and couldn’t shake the feeling that I just didn’t belong there. I couldn’t focus on schoolwork, and stopped handing in my work. Even if I could do it, I would have nothing good to show for it. There was nothing about me that was worth being proud of, so I tried to erase all aspects of myself that could burden others. At that, too, I failed.
I dragged the bound up corpses of all my incompletes and F’s and other assorted failures through several semesters, hoping that by some miracle it would all go away. It never did. Still, I refused to give up. If nothing else, I was supposed to be a good student. It was the thing I loved most in the world, and what had kept me going through all my other past failures in grade school. It’s fine if no one likes me, because I’m a good student. It’s fine if I’m strange, because I’m a good student. It’s fine if that’s the only thing people see me as, even above my own humanity, because I am proud I’m a good student. It had been a long time since that statement was true.
Eventually, even my ever-accomodating college decided that enough was enough, and in November 2023, they very gently withdrew me from my classes and put me on academic leave. I couldn’t ignore reality anymore. I returned home with my proverbial tail tucked between my legs and convinced I was the worst person on earth. I did not go back to my university.
I don’t have a lot to write about what happened in the next few months. I applied to a whole lot of jobs, and got denied by all of them. I planted some seeds, but they grew wrong and promptly died. I mostly just lay in bed otherwise, feeling like crap the whole time. It was sad and dark and miserable and honestly kind of pathetic. I did a whole lot of nothing from December to June.
July, though, was different. My best friend has spent the entire summer studying for the LSAT and, to be honest, I was jealous. Not maliciously, but I so desperately wanted to be doing something. She was amazing, working hard and looking towards the future while I was stuck in place rusting. I had nothing to look forward to, nothing to work towards. I wondered how hard the LSAT was, so I started looking into it. This, eventually, led to me looking towards law school, but if I wanted to go to law school, I’d need good grades and a bachelor’s, which didn’t seem to be in the cards for me. I was stuck again.
A few weeks later, I got the opportunity to start tutoring that same best friend’s little sister after I helped her with some math homework. It was nothing too difficult, but, after months of searching, it was a job! Besides, I’d always liked tutoring, so I accepted. I’m very grateful I was given the chance, because she’s a fantastic kid and I loved working with her. After months of inactivity, I finally felt like I was doing something again and genuinely helping people out. I looked back to those moments of understanding I myself had had in grade school, and began to look for those in her as well. The moment where she realized the exact ways the Great Depression tied into modern-day events she read about in the newspaper, or the moment where a writing assignment got her riled up with ideas on how to argue a point. It was around this time that I started the paperwork to officially transfer to the University of Puerto Rico.
Things were better, much better than I thought they could ever be during all those months I spent laying about the apartment. Still, they weren’t perfect. Now that I was moving around again, the loneliness began to hit me. All my friends were out studying in the United States, and the people I knew from high school, I hadn’t talked to in years. I wasn’t sure how to reach out, or if they’d even care. It didn’t help that I’d spent so long thinking I was a terrible person. I was sure no one would ever want to see my face.
This all occurred over election season, which brought another one of my worries to the forefront. Over the last year, I’d realized that I never actually did anything. What good is knowledge if you never actually use it for anything? I had loved the plurality of choices college provided, but looking back, I used that same plurality as an excuse to avoid doing anything out of fear of locking myself into one course of action. It was easy to have an opinion, but much harder to actually do something about it.
While I wish I could say I immediately jumped into some form of political activism, I started out much simpler: I actually signed up to vote. This sounds lame, I know, but for the past few years, paperwork had been one of the most difficult tasks I’d been faced with. Something about having to check off all those documents and take all those pictures just made my brain hurt, and I’d stall and stall until it was too late and I was overridden by guilt.
These were small steps, but they were a start. After so long of being trapped by my anxiety, fear, and depression, it felt like I could finally begin to breathe out all the musty air from my lungs. I kept going. I began to learn the programming language R. I picked up the books I’d never finished reading. I let myself think back to my college experience despite the shame it still held. More and more. I got accepted as a readmission student, and filled out the dozens of papers required. I registered for classes. Soon enough, I felt like I was running, maybe while out of breath and panting, but still running.
Soon enough, January arrived, and with it, my first classes at the University of Puerto Rico. Being in class again was amazing. Instead of the shame that had been attached to school the past years, I felt… content. Yes, I still felt lonely, and I struggled to talk to new people. Still, I kept going. “I have to move forward now,” I reminded myself. I couldn’t be there forever.
Even better, I was lucky enough to get to meet with one of the Political Science professors after a family friend that knew him helped arrange it. During this meeting, the best thing that could have happened to me happened: he informed me that the investigation project that I’d had my eye on since the fall was actually in the process of hiring. I was ecstatic. I’d promised myself I was going to spend my time going forwards doing things that would help people, and here was the chance to participate in an investigation that was doing just that.
A few months later, I started working. The work was easy in theory: visit different neighborhoods and try to get people to take the survey. However, the heat and humidity made it much more uncomfortable than I was initially expecting. I’ll admit that I was lucky the vast majority of people we met out in the field were nice and wanted to help out. By the time I got home in the afternoon, I’d be beat, but I would also feel satisfied with myself in a way I hadn’t in a long time. I was no longer simply surviving, but beginning to thrive.
By the time June 2025 rolled around, I’d aced my classes for the semester and had met new friends through the school year. What’s more, both my best friends had graduated and returned to the island. For the record, yes, the one that was studying for the LSAT did get into UPR Law — which of course she did because she’s amazing. By the time summer ended, I was asked by my bosses to help train some new hires, and they even gave me permission to take an investigation seminar class despite not technically meeting one of the prerequisites.
Overall, I can say I’m pretty damn happy with where I am in life. I’m far from perfect. Time management will probably never be one of my strong suits, but I can confidently say that, as of the day I’m writing this article, I hand in the vast majority of my work on time. I think I can live with the occasional slip up, anyways. And as for the loneliness, it still hits sometimes. Earlier this semester, I had to hide in the bathroom for fifteen minutes because I felt so out of place at the event I was at that I was afraid I would cry in front of everyone. That sucked. That really sucked. But this week, I was at another event where I got to know some really cool people better, and that one was really fun. Sh*t happens, but sometimes it’s good sh*t.
I had to learn how to put myself in the places I want to be. For someone who grew up believing that her existence was a burden on others, it was a difficult adjustment to make. There are good types of challenges out there, though, and I’m so proud of myself when I take them up. I love being able to be the person that helps my classmates out with math. I love that I can be someone people can depend on at my job. I love how I can drag myself (kicking and screaming, violently) into actually completing all my classwork now. I love texting my friends, and getting to go on completely unplanned food adventures. I love sitting in my best friend’s car gossiping about the stupidest things imaginable. And yes, I love being a student.