The Ninth Reflection

I was reminded a few weeks ago of a moment from my first semester of my freshman year of college.

My first semester of college was filled to the brim with sadness, anxiety, stress, and sheer terror. Up until that point, I had never felt so low in my life (and unfortunately, I wish I could go back to that moment and live there forever, since the present day feels much worse than anything I experienced at the age of 18), and it showed in my academics. I was studying computer engineering at the time, because I thought that’s what I wanted to do with my life. I went through a few different phases in my interests, and I wanted to develop video games at that point, so I studied computer engineering. And, about 2 months into the semester, I went through a rough patch

I was not the greatest student, and spent a lot of time slacking off now that I had this freedom to do whatever I wanted to do without anyone telling me not to do it. I played a lot of video games. I became very social. I had a lot of friends. I also had very bad study habits and, eventually…very bad grades to show for my study habits (or lack thereof)

The first Calc 1 exam came and went, and I remember feeling so overwhelmed by the exam. I didn’t even attempt most of the problems, because I had no idea what to do, and eventually got so frustrated with the packet in front of me that I turned it in, almost completely blank. I didn’t want to look at it. I didn’t want to stress out.

We got our scores back and I was presented with the lowest score I’ve ever received on an exam. Not only was it a bad grade, but it was the lowest score I think I ever received on any exam I’ve ever taken: 8/60. Or roughly 13%.

At that exact moment, I realized that I didn’t have what it would take to be an engineer. I realized that I didn’t have what it would take for me to achieve that goal. And that scared me.

You know about fight or flight response? How the body and mind are essentially hard wired to respond to a perceived threat by either confrontation or escape? How we, as humans, are intricately designed to either face something head on or distance ourselves from that thing as much as humanly possible? How we are intentionally designed to do one of two things, and how those two things are polar opposites of each other? Well, my body and mind opted for the latter: flight.

I had a friend at the time named Megan. And Megan wanted me to get an education. And when I realized that I didn’t have what it would take to be an engineer, she was the first person I went to for help.

I remember us sitting at a table at the library (if I were to go to that library, I could probably identify the exact table we sat at), and I remember her wheeling a whiteboard over to the table, uncapping a marker, and saying “what are your options here?”

We sat there and brainstormed ideas. I sat there for a while, and she patiently stood next to the whiteboard and wrote down all the ideas I had to get myself out of the situation I was in without completely abandoning college. And we eventually landed on one. I left the library that day, knowing that I was going to change my major from computer engineering to this thing called management information systems. I wanted to do something computer related, but the path had changed. I felt some hope, but I also still had some doubt. I dropped Calc 1, went back to Pre Calc, and proceeded to continue to do poorly in all my classes. I hadn’t learned how to study. I hadn’t learned how to learn. I didn’t want to ask anyone for help, because I didn’t want to bother other people. I didn’t want to prevent them from learning. I felt like it was me against the world. But I still had Megan. We would hang out and eat ice cream and talk and laugh and have all sorts of fun still. But even that wouldn’t last forever.

And then, when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, I hit a bump in the road. And the moment I hit that bump, the wheels fell off entirely. Megan and I had a falling out a few weeks after that day at the library, and my soul was crushed. My path had changed, the person who had helped me find that path had abandoned me (at least, in my perception at the time), and I fell into a really bad depression. I stopped going to class. I stopped getting out of bed, at one point. I would sleep a lot and sit around a lot and do a whole lot of nothing.

Every grade that wasn’t already affected by my lack of studying was almost immediately affected by my lack of confidence in any idea that I would ever be okay. The semester ended, I went back home, and waited. And sat around. And did nothing…except wait.

I was in the bathroom at my childhood home and I got an email saying that final grades had been posted. On my phone, I logged into my account, and opened my first ever grade report from my first semester of college, to see that I was on what the university refers to as “academic probation”

And then, on the same page, saw why: a GPA of 0.69.

Nobody hated me more in that moment than I did. Nobody felt more at odds with me in that moment than I did. And I was so angry, but significantly more sad than anything. And even more than that, I was depressed.

I remember asking my mom if I could borrow her car, since I wanted to go drive around for a bit, and she told me that was okay. I grabbed the keys to her car out of the bowl in the basement, opened the garage door, got in her car, and left.

By my childhood home, there’s a bridge. This bridge crosses over the interstate, and I remember having the conscious thought when I was in high school that, if life ever got so bad that I decided to end it, I was going to jump off that bridge. And, that day, I drove up the hill and took a left, then turned onto the street that leads to that bridge. And, in the few seconds it took for me to get to the bridge, I had that thought cross my mind: if life ever got so bad that I decided to end it, I was going to jump off that bridge. And, as I was driving down that road, the last bit of that statement reverberated in my mind: I was going to jump off that bridge.

I drove down the street, and, as I was about to cross the bridge, another thought intruded: “But Anthony, what if it gets better?”

And, as I was crossing the bridge, foot on the gas the entire time, yet another thought chimed in: “It won’t, and everyone who’s ever told you it will is lying to you”

I crossed the bridge without slowing down, and as soon as I got to the stoplight, one last thought showed up in my mind: “don’t kill yourself. You need to prove them wrong. You need to prove that life doesn’t get any better”

In that moment, I decided to fight.

Today is Tuesday, February 4th, 2025. I ended up dropping out of college. Twice. I work a full time job at a TV station as a newscast director. Today, I was told that I’m extremely disrespectful and that all of the morning directors don’t like me and think that I’m not fun to work with. In 2024, I was one misinformed decision away from being raped by one of our morning show producers. I was screamed at, I was told that I was horrible, I was blamed for all these problems, and I was abused. If I had been in slightly different situations or been in the situations I was in even moments earlier or later than when I actually was, my life would be over at this point. I would be dead right now. I’ve been torn down, I’ve been insulted, I’ve been threatened, I’ve been told that I would never succeed, I’ve been discriminated against for being young and uneducated, and I’ve cried more since I started directing than I ever have in any other job I’ve ever had.

It’s a little after 8:30pm. I have to be at work at 3am on February 5th. And I’m going to get up in the morning, drive to work in the freezing cold weather, and work for 10 hours tomorrow. And I might be tired and I might feel defeated by this whole thing, but I will be at work tomorrow. And I will fight for all 10 hours that I’m there. And when my time is up, I’ll go home.

But I’ll be back.