Hey, you. Yes, you. The person that could work 4 pm to 10 pm schedules six days a week, yet be up for school at 6 am five days a week? The person that could consistently have just shy of $1,000 on any given day? That person who could get his bills paid without assistance? You were the model employee. What happened to him?

Yet, despite all that, you could consistently get As and Bs throughout your high school life, and met deadlines no matter what happened. You got damn near great attendance throughout your junior and senior years of high school. You never, ever allowed yourself to make excuses whenever there would be a hurdle you needed to climb to achieve maximum excellence in your high school life. You never settled for anything less than a 3.0 in any subject. You were the model student. What happened to him?

Between 7th grade and late 2013, you were looked up to as the model student, son, and employee. Then, something changed in you. What was it?

Granted, you got fired from your first job at the turn of the new year in 2014, but you seemed to bounce back from that very smoothly a few weeks later and continued the excellence that carried you all those years. Things looked to be smooth sailing in your life.

Until that fateful day in March 2014, when you found out that your father, the hero in your life, tragically passed from us due to a heart attack. It rocked you, and you forgot who you were for a few months. Yet, you still powered through, and still attended work not too long after his death. You still had that solid excellency throughout your life, but we saw some cracks show through you.

Then, you started to show up late for work. Started to dabble in shit you should not have been involved in with no knowledge. Your attitude towards work, life, friends, and family noticeably started to change. That was the extent of the cracks that proved to be warning signs that something was going amiss.

The further extent of those cracks began getting bigger and bigger when you attended school after taking the 2013-14 academic year off. Your first semester proved to be mediocre at best. Okay, it’s been a year. Work off the rust, you’ll return stronger than ever.

You bounced back with a bang in the Winter of 2015 when your semester GPA matched your high school GPAs. Life was still looking great, but those cracks never seemed to be sealed, as was evident in the late summer-fall of 2015. Your financial life started to slowly take a shit, as some late payments on bills started to become more prevalent. You started to miss due dates on the regular. During the fall of 2015, you started to sink further and further.

During the fall of 2015, you decided to switch up what was working, and never got a grade above a 3.0. You decided to take evening classes, which would prove to be a bad idea due to the aforementioned grade point average. Maybe a fluke?

Winter of 2016 was a mixed bag. At the start of the year, you idiotically quit your job, leaving you unemployed for three months of the year. During that stretch, some signs that you were taking more involvement in your school life by joining The Odyssey Online. It was met by being a hit; you even got the most views for a week on a particular article. On your 22nd birthday, no less.

Then, your inability to get shit done within the deadlines caught up with you, badly there.

Summer 2016 proved to be a hell summer, financially and, especially socially, with the divisiveness with the election. It’s okay, shake it off, and have an impressive fall of 2016.

You did indeed have an impressive fall of 2016, getting above a 3.5 in two of your three classes. Even with the hostility during the 2016 election, with you yourself on the receiving end of some negative comments during and after the night of 11/8/2016, you still powered through and got your financial life and academic life still in order.

Then, the winter of 2017 hit, and so did your academic life. You, again, idiotically took evening classes even though you knew what would happen, considering you did the same thing two years prior. You were not so lucky this time, as you barely scraped by with a 2.0.

As you’re approaching the final few semesters of your collegiate career, one question I still have for you, Travis. What the fuck happened to you? What happened to that model student, employee, family member, and an overall person that was there from 2007-13? What happened from going from that to the lazy fuck-up that you are now? I know you’re still in shock about your father passing, and that would have an understandably negative impact on somebody, but still. You’re better than that, Travis.

At least I thought you were.

Signed, junior and senior year of high school Travis