17 Apr Short Story POV Change
As soon as Denzel sit down in attempt to scribe his story overcoming adversity he was forced to face a harsh reality…his early twenties were shitty. Let me explain. During Denzel’s first year of college, he had all the same expectations and ambitions many recent high school graduates his age had: get drunk enough to barely remember the first three years and become codependent on Adderall by the fourth. Unfortunately, he far exceeded most of these expectations.
Denzel had finally realized his high school dreams, successfully move out of his parent’s house, yet still have his parents foot the bill. He and his cousin were initially alleged to move into the freshman’s dorms on campus, but because of her allergies, their parents were forced to come up with alternate plans. After a week of searching for apartments that were, both affordable for their parents to cover the cost and close enough to campus for them to commute by foot they finally found a spot right across the street from their prospective university. They were ecstatic; no curfew, no annoying RA, and best of all, no parents! With nothing more than duffle bags full of clothes and a twin size blow up bed a piece, they set out on what was to be their greatest adventure to date.
This augmented reality soon proved to have real-world consequences. See, neither of them had ever lived this far from home or without parental structure and/or supervision. No sooner than their parents finished settling them in and made their way back home Denzel and his cousin were already throwing huge house parties, skipping classes, and inviting complete strangers to crash on their couch for weeks at a time. After all, this was “their” house. It wasn’t long before they began receiving noise complaints from neighbors and giving their elderly landlord complete and utter hell.
So quite obviously, if these two home lives had turned into cutscenes from 21 Jump Street, their academic lives weren’t holding up well either. There were days in which Denzel vividly remembers stepping over any number of bodies in the hallway in his attempts to get out the door and on the way to class. By the end of his first semester, he had accumulated a GPA less than 2 digits. And he wasn’t alone. By the end of their first year, three of his closest friends had quit going to classes altogether and he and his cousin had been put on academic probation, eventually advancing that into a complete academic suspension. To add to their despair, they had been forcefully evicted from their parental supported apartment by the landlord, leaving their parents to absorb the remaining three months’ rent.
This accumulation of reckless decision making forced Denzel to take a three-year hiatus from school. He eventually re-enrolled as a more mature and responsible twenty-three-year-old. Although, I’m sure he has his regrets surrounding his first attempt at college and the headache he gave my parents, he is thankful to have had the time away from school to explore more non-traditional avenues outside of a formal education and discover how to place his own value on education. May 2013, eight years after he originally enrolled in college, Denzel graduated with an undergraduate degree in communication.
