The classroom held a quiet stillness around me as my eyes stayed fixated on the clock, watching each slow, shaking tick and circular rotation of the second arm. Time in the stuffy portable classes felt like an endless revolving door.
“Amanda… Amanda!” I gave myself a slight whiplash, leaving my timekeeping daydream and turning my attention to the head of the class where my teacher stood, annoyed.
“Eyes down and focus on your test, please.” I nodded, neck suddenly aching, dropping my head and gazing down at the multiple choice quiz that laid before me. All unanswered. This was a common occurrence in my high school career. I hadn’t slept the night before or studied the week of. My life, at that point, was flooded with concerns that felt larger than school itself. And I couldn’t seem to balance the unmanageable weight.
When my home, work, and social life were in order and allowed, I applied myself in school and found happiness in the results. Unfortunately, the moments when those stars aligned were too few and too far between to reflect the grade point average I desired. Or one that was passable. The failing hole I was digging myself into felt inescapable.
Looking back at the teacher, a sudden sense of bitterness overwhelmed me, knowing she’d never pass me. Knowing she would never take the time to ask me why I wasn’t able to meet simple, basic class requirements. Knowing that ultimately, this test would make no difference to my letter grade whether all my answers correct or all of them were wrong this late in the semester. The resentment, anger, and sadness at my fate began to pour over in sets of two. The multiple choices began to blur behind fat, heavy tears that filled my eyes. Trying to blink them away, a pair of big salted sob splats landed between questions nine and ten. Embarrassed, I wiped beneath my eyes and looked up to see time had trudged along, and there was only one minute remaining in the period.
I took a deep breath in and exhaled shame, knowing I had failed both this test and myself. I gathered my things before the bell rang and scurried out the door alone. Walking down the hallway, I knew I wouldn’t return next week, next semester, or next year. I left behind a test with tear stains and no answers.
That moment haunted me for years to come. Though I had received a GED at sixteen, I couldn’t shake the feeling of failing. Recurrent nightmares of being at my graduation, looking for my seat that wasn’t available, plagued me. The endless cycle of working in the service industry didn’t help my self-esteem, either. Overtime, I felt the test questions I couldn’t answer hadn’t faded, but only changed:
Why are you here?
Are you happy?
Where do you plan on going from here?
Between clearing tables and taking orders, I’d lean against my quiet corner by the register and dive into the only work I truly loved, sometimes only one sentence at a time. These were my scarce moments of reprieve. Of escapism.
My whole life, I enjoyed the art of writing; especially while still in high school. Writing for me was an act of liberation. It was like freeing myself from the ball and chain of my own reality. Though I may have never sees my way out of inescapable situations, my protagonist could. Midpage catharsis would often get the best of me. Pride overwhelmed me when I saw the fictional characters I’d created break free of chaotic cycles that I couldn’t. From scrawling in my school calibers, to collecting scrap receipt papers in my apron with narrative ideas scribbled across them; it felt like a means of survival as a creative individual.
But it wasn’t until the countdown to midnight on New Years Eve that I landed on a new, unexplored resolution. I decided to submit my short stories and pieces collected over time to literary magazines across the nation despite my unshakable imposter syndrome and lingering failure complex. I took all of my prose winnings and bet them on red.
To my surprise? I received over a dozen acceptances and publication opportunities by the time summer had arrived. Each one I accepted made my path feel a bit brighter and easier to trek. After almost two decades, I’d felt some of the answers finally being filled in before me.
In the rosy colored filter that was becoming my view of the world, something happened. I didn’t feel like such a failure anymore. My self-appointed titles were changing. And if I was a writer, could I also be a student? Or even a graduate?
I found myself opening my laptop and searching for colleges, learning what steps I needed to take in order to apply, creating my resume, writing cover letters, and researching grants and financial aid; I spent hours clicking, reading and note taking. Upon sending my application to a local State university, I whispered a small vow to myself; the kind you know by heart, repeating it as a mantra in moments of strength or weakness until it manifests in the world around you.
“No matter the favor of the odds, I will give it my all.”
It was only when my acceptance letter came that I realized I wasn’t betting it all on red.
I was betting on myself.
And that is the safest bet I could ever make.
Amanda Izzo is a writer and undergraduate from Boston, MA. Though she’s enjoyed writing privately for years, recently she began sharing detailed recollections of her life and youth in the form of creative nonfiction. In the hopes of connecting to other readers, shy creatives, and elder freshmen alike. This season, she has been published in Levitate Magazine, Braver Collective, Argyle Literary Magazine, Querencia Press and the Ana.