To the girl who is currently living paycheck-to-paycheck,
Believe me when I say that I have been in your shoes. Yes, I am talking about those torn, beaten-up Converse sneakers that you have been trudging all around campus with for the past three years because you haven't been able to make enough money to buy a new pair. I know what it's like when your friends invite you to go out to dinner and your account balance adds up to only $6, which you need to keep in order to pay for your three loads of laundry. You begin to panic as you look at your most recent paycheck and find out that it's only enough to cover half of your rent for the next month, let alone all the other bills you have yet to pay. I know the scare that you feel that when you receive another email from the financial office as they send you your estimated tuition amount for next semester, and you realize you can only afford half of that number on the screen. I am still in those shoes, but there is still hope for girls like us after all.
You see, even though we struggle on a daily basis, there are still so many things we have yet to notice are going well in our lives, and that we should be thankful for. For instance, we have our health, we have our jobs, we have our family and friends, and best of all, we have our own personal experiences from our hardship. The reason we work as hard as we do is so that we can go to school, get an education, and create lifelong memories. We want to be able to afford that house we're renting next semester because all of our closest friends will be living in it, too. We want to be able to go out to dinner with classmates because we enjoy their company and want to relieve a little of the stress outside of the lecture halls. We want to be able to afford our tuition because we thrive on learning every day and see the bright future ahead of us. So why must we work so hard in order to do these things?
Our life is not easy, and most likely, it isn't going to be for a little while longer. Once we graduate from our universities, we are again thrown into the real world and are forced to figure out our own path through life. However, the good news is that we already know how to work hard for what we want. We know what it's like to live close to rock-bottom. We are able to now look forward into the future and see that one day, we will make it out of this state. All we have to do is keep folding those clothes, keep stocking those shelves, and prove to ourselves that everything is going to be all right. That paycheck will come, that loan will get paid, and most importantly, we'll get through this.
Sincerely,
Your fellow broke college girl
