When you try your best
but you don't succeed
when you get what you want
but not what you need
when you feel so tired
but you can't sleep
stuck in reverse

Tonight I will be rejecting my admission to my dream college.

After stressing out for four years, after all my time spent studying instead of enjoying high school, after all the effort and tears I put into all nine of my college applications and essays, it all concludes with me going into a backup school I was automatically accepted into from the beginning.

I'd always pictured my college life to take place at a very traditional, old New England style college, complete with old style architecture, a large courtyard, elegant dorms tucked inside of a bustling city. Ever since my sister's college graduation, I'd dreamed out that picturesque outdoor graduation, underneath the warm sun and perfect blue sky with just the right amount of clouds. Instead, I will be attending a school in which, at my first glance, I thought "This looks like a prison." A college where the graduation takes place inside a tiny gym; even my own high school graduation isn't taking inside of our gym.

I had a chance at all this. I had a chance at my dream. But, after living through four years of my parents paying full tuition for my sister to attend the most expensive college in the US and hearing their subtle complaints and regrets, I will not burden them with another $50k+ college. I will sacrifice my dream, a dream so close it was almost tangible but slipped away.

Sometimes, though, I wish I could be a bit selfish.

Nobody said it was easy
no one ever said it would be this hard
Oh, take me back to the start