I know that the semester isn’t over yet, but I want to take some time to reflect on my semester at Wake Forest. It’s not easy to put into words my experience and so limiting it to “good, bad, or somewhere in between” probably wouldn’t reveal that much. That’s because, in reality, it’s been a mixed bag of feelings, situations, and people – a story that’s forever changing.

To put it short: this was the most difficult yet rewarding semester, so far. But, before I explain why, I’d like to provide some context by talking about my journey to Wake Forest.

To start, I think it’s cliché and presumptuous to say that life wasn’t always easy, but life wasn’t always easy for me. I come from a relatively difficult background. My family and I grew up having the mere essentials and often moved from house-to-house because we couldn’t afford the rent. All in all, I think we moved 6 times in 10 years.

Thankfully food was never a problem, but we were once homeless. So, I had a lot on my mind growing up. I didn’t have a father, we often moved, there were fights almost every day. At one point, things had gotten so bad I had to resort to illegal activities to help support my family; so, needless to say, school was the last thing on my mind when I was younger. As a result, my grades and test scores were poor, and my intellect reflected that.

It wasn’t until 10^th grade that I had changed completely and started focusing on school. There were many reasons I decided to make the change: I felt inferior to other people, I saw that through my education I could help my family, but most importantly, I wanted to succeed in life without a father. Around that time, I had told my dad that he was only a stranger to me and that every time I told him I loved him, I didn’t mean it. And it was true. He was never there – only stopping by every other 6 months to give me money that I didn’t want to show his “love” for me.

So, I made the change and started doing increasingly better in school. I went from being at the bottom of my class to the top 10% by the time I was a senior. But, that’s only because the school I went to wasn’t all that difficult; regardless, however, it still demanded my will to achieve it.

And so, by the time senior year came around, I had this narrative built around me: young, hard working Latino overcoming a life of crime, poverty, and a low GPA. The expectations were high, so I applied to Wake Forest – the only school I thought I could get accepted to – because I wanted the respect and attention from certain people. But, as some folks back home in Houston know, I was rejected.

It was around that time that my family and I were homeless – in desperate need of money. I’d managed to get accepted to a small school in Tyler, Texas called UT-Tyler. The plan was to go to that school for a year then transfer to UT-Austin, Texas’ biggest school. My time at UT-Tyler was also difficult.

My family and I were so poor, I lived off coffee and cigarettes for about two months and lost 20 pounds because I wasn’t eating properly. There were also points where I thought that I wouldn’t be able to continue going to college because I didn’t have the money to make the monthly payments the school required of me, so my nerves were usually high – wondering if my plans for the future were going to come through. Thankfully I had the support of some old teachers and friends who helped me finish the year.

But, it was around halfway through the second semester that I decided I would give Wake Forest another shot. But, what was different about applying that time versus the year before is that I did it for myself, not for other people. I figured that if I’m doing it for myself, I don’t care whether I get accepted or not, so I went ahead and gave the application my all because I wanted to, not because I thought other people would respect me for it. And lo and behold, I got accepted with a full ride. Words can’t begin to describe just how happy I was. I’d finally done it: I’d gotten accepted to my dream school.

So, fast forward to the first day I arrived at Wake Forest. I had signed up for a Preorientation (World Wide Wake) so I could familiarize myself with the school and some of the people I was going to go to school with. While I did meet a quite a number of people, our relationships didn’t extend outside the orientation.

People were still in that superficial-hello phase where they acknowledge each other’s existence but don’t take the time to get to know each other. Despite that attitude most students took, I still managed to make two friends that I still would consider “close.” But all in all, it was a difficult time for me, especially since I’m not fond of making friends through boring, repeated conversations.

By the time the preorientation was over, classes were just beginning to start, and I was excited for two reasons: first, I’d read that the professors at Wake are outstanding (and outstanding they are); second, classes offered another opportunity to make friends. Now, I’m a pretty introverted guy, but I’ll talk when I need/want to talk.

The only problem, though, is that the classes I took made it difficult to interact with other people, so instead of making new friends I was left the same ones I made during Preorientation. And it was like that for a while (about two-to-four weeks) so obviously, I was feeling lonely.

But, what made matters worse was that my family in Houston were going through Hurricane Harvey and my aunt was dying. Sh!t was rough: the death of my aunt, which wouldn’t happen until a little later, was my first encounter with death. And so considering that I’m over 15 hours away from my family, I felt more lonely and helpless than I’d ever felt in my life. At one point, things had gotten so out control, I called the Crisis center to speak with a therapist.

Thankfully, I met some new people around that time and shit was starting to look better. I joined Wake Radio and Undocudeacs and was finally making new friends, but by the time I was getting settled, my aunt passed away and I lost it. I called the Crisis center again in hopes of relieving my stress, but they couldn’t help me. It was then that I went into overdrive.

My anxiety and depression had been the highest it’s ever been, and I was taking a lot of time throughout the day thinking about life until I came to the realization that I had physically and sexually abused when I was young, which made my neuroticism ten times worse. I confronted my offender and they were reluctant to admit what they had done, but I knew what happened.

Anyways, fast forward to mid-September and a DACA speak out is being held. I signed up to be a speaker and when I went up, I said some pretty radical sh!t. I’ll explain why I said what I said in another article in the future, but point is that I said we should shoot Federal Agents if they started deporting DACA students on campus.

I made a mistake saying what I said, so I was called into the Dean of Students office to explain myself. Dr. Goldstein assessed that I wasn’t a threat but that he should probably keep an eye on me. Keep in mind, I had all the other sh!t going on back home, so I was anxious and jittery most of the time, so Goldstein’s assessment was probably an accurate one.

Fast forward a couple days and I was getting a lot of attention for what I said, all the while dealing with what was going on back home. Sh!t was rough like I said. I could barely sleep, I was drinking more coffee and smoking more cigarettes than I’d ever done before, and I was also eating a lot more.

I think I gained about 30 pounds over the course of two months. I was disgusted with myself, I hated what was going on back home, and I despised the people in Wake for having what I thought was an easier life than mine. Then, I’d gotten an email from campus police telling me that the FBI wanted to see me for the comments I made at the DACA speak out. I lost it. I called the Crisis center again to see if I could get help, but nothing. I felt so hopeless, alone, confused, overwhelmed, angry, sad, and mad that later that day I almost attempted suicide.

I won’t go too much into the details because this article is already pretty personal, but I wanted to talk about that moment in my life – where I almost ended my existence – because of how stressed out I was. I never thought I’d reach a point like that, a point where I thought killing myself would solve my problems.

To this day I’m still surprised I even went that far – surprised, but also understanding. I had a lot of shit going on: my family was being affected by Hurricane Harvey, my aunt died, I realized I was physically and sexually abused, and now there was the possibility I would go to federal prison. My food swipes and dollars were also running low and I’d quit my Work study job to financially support my family and so things were going to get much worse.

After my almost-suicide attempt, I was taken to the hospital for rehabilitation. It was nice. By the end of it, I felt like a new person. I’d gotten back to my morning routine: mediation, read, and write; I was on new medicine; I had a support system being built back at school that would help me adjust back to school-life.

Things, I could finally say with certainty, were finally looking better for me. Thankfully my family was safe, I’ve been dealing with the death of my aunt much better, I’ve come to accept the reality of being physically and sexually abused, and I wasn’t going to jail.

The Saturday of the week I got back, I was reading a Buddhist book in the library, and I was on the verge of tears. I felt like the author was speaking directly to me – it was beautiful. But because I was on the verge of tears, I decided I wanted to go to a quieter place to read, so I walked to Davis field, where I almost attempted suicide.

I didn’t want to admit to myself that the reason I went to Davis field was to confront what had happened there a week ago, but I still walked towards there nonetheless and felt my insides curl up. I tried reading, but I couldn’t. So, I said to myself, f*ck it, and sat on the floor and meditated on self-forgiveness.

It was perhaps one of the most eventful moments of my life. While I meditated, tears rolled down my face effortlessly and I could feel the cool breeze brush up against the trials the tears had left. When I finished, I picked up my book and began to read again, then I read a line that I’ll paraphrase here:

“Like a tree in a storm, you must stand firmly when the emotions are powerful.”

After I read that line, I put my book down, got an Uber to take me to the nearest Tattoo shop, and got the Buddha tattooed on my right forearm. That was perhaps one of the most eventful days of my life.

Fast-forward to now, and I’d say that things are pretty good. Academically, I’m back on the speed of things. Socially, I’ve made more friends. Food wise, the school hooked me up with an I.D card that has a ton of swipes at the pit, so I don’t have to worry about going hungry. I’ve joined another club that I really f*ck with. I’m writing for Odyssey, which is cool.

In conclusion, I’d say that there’s always a light at the end of the tunnel, but there’s also darkness that you have to go through in order to reach that light, so you have to be prepared for both.