Life Has Its Plans

By Samuel Almazan Senior Staff Writer

Once you graduate high school, you’re expected to go straight to college, get a degree in four years, and start your career. And I started on that path. When I graduated in 2016, I went straight to the University of Bridgeport. Everything seemed to be going well for me. In the sense of following the path I originally set out for myself, things seemed to be going as planned. I thought I could do no wrong and live a stressfree life. But as I would soon come to find out, life has its plans.

In the spring of 2018, which would have been my fourth semester at UB, I found myself working full-time at my job instead. At that time, I was okay with my job. I enjoyed what I was doing. I was working for a soccer academy, so I got to be around the sport I grew up with and loved. I was promoted to director of the youth programs. I was in charge of hiring coaches, training the players, and creating new opportunities for the academy. This promotion wasn’t the sole cause of my dropping out of school. Toward the end of the fall semester of 2017, I had family issues that distracted me throughout the semester. I couldn’t focus as much as I wanted to. I found myself at a crossroads: Do I continue school or pursue a career that my job had to offer?

Accepting that promotion made sense at that time, but stepping away from getting my degree was something that bothered me. I fell off the path I set for myself. I didn’t let that slow me down. I continued with my life.

I was working full days at my job (which I still currently work at.) From 9 a.m., all the way to 10 p.m. I drowned myself in my work, trying to drown out the feeling of not being in school anymore. To be honest, I felt a sense of accomplishment while working. I felt productive and successful. I was doing what I loved and getting paid for it. That’s the dream, right? Again, I felt like everything was going right for me. But as I learned before, life has its plans.

March of 2020, when the world shut down. For many, this was one of the most difficult times of their lives. It was the hardest and most confusing time of my life. Before COVID shut down the whole world, my world had already been destroyed. My cousin, who was a brother to me, passed away on March 10 Talk about life throwing curve balls, well this was something I never saw coming. Everything happened so fast. To this day, that week still feels like a blur to me, yet I still remember every single detail that happened that horrid day. Dealing with his death and the world shutting down, I didn’t know what to make of it all.

As the world stayed on pause, I took that time to examine my own life. I had no degree, and no job at this point because of COVID, and I just lost the most important person in my life. I felt like life was moving on and leaving me behind. I felt stuck in the world I was living in. At this point, I had no sense of direction. All my pieces to the puzzles were scattered everywhere. Where do I go from here?

Eventually, my job reopened, which allowed me to find myself again. But as I was drowning myself with work again, I still felt like something was missing from life. With my cousin’s passing, I was reevaluating life. I wanted to make something out of my life. I wanted to make my cousin proud. I wanted to get my degree, something I know was missing from my life. So, what I did next might seem out of nowhere, but this was something on my mind since graduating high school. This was something I had originally planned for myself, but going to UB pushed that to the side. On November 20, 2020, I enlisted in the U.S. Army. I left for basic training on March 21, 2021. During that time, I found myself challenged daily mentally and physically. I pushed myself every day, reminding myself why I’m doing this. I reminded myself about all the failures and deadends I had in life. I used all that as fuel to push through that finish line. On graduation day, I relived all those moments of difficulty in my head, with a smile on my face because I was able to conquer it all and put myself in a position to succeed in life again. I felt like I was able to get back on track in life.

Once I came back home, I enrolled in classes at Housatonic. I was going to

get my degree.

Today, I’m in my third semester at Housatonic, on the verge of getting my associate’s degree. I had given up on myself a couple of times but I always found the strength to continue the fight with life. It wasn’t easy at all. Of course, I have some regrets and made mistakes I wish I hadn’t made, but that’s life.

Life has its plan, but as long as you continue to believe in yourself, you’ll be able to conquer anything life throws at you.