Sincerely Luna Rose

January 12th, 2015

Dear Scholarship Board,

I've believed in a lot of things in my life. I believed in my mother once upon a time ago, but then she found the love of her life in a needle and decided that she didn't want to be a mother anymore. And I stopped believing that she'd stop searching for the bottom of her bottle. I believed in my brother too, but then he found his way around the town. I stopped believing in him when he stopped checking for monsters under my bed and he realized that all monsters were inside of our heads. My father was my idol at one point, before I knew what the world was made of, but I lost him when he found a better life somewhere far away from me, and I stopped believing in him too.

However, one thing that has always been a steady thing in my life is the belief that has been beaten into me since I was a child. From my mother, from my teachers, and my peers, I've always been told that this is it. This run down city, the place that I call home, this is all that there is in the world and it's all that I'll ever be. I smoke, I drink, I do drugs, I skip classes, and that's all that I'll ever be. I'm stupid, I'm lonely, I'm poor, I'm sad, and that's all that I'll ever be. Like a mantra in my head, that's all that I've ever heard, it's all that I've ever believed. People like us, we just don't get lucky. We don't get out, we don't get happy endings. This is it. And I've believed it for so long.

Clearly, I am writing this essay though, aren't I? And just by writing this essay, I am challenging that belief. Just by sending in this application, and all of the other applications that I have been grueling over in these past weeks, I am sticking it to the man. No, this is not what I will ever be. Or maybe it is. I don't know, but the point is that there is a possibility. It is a slim possibility, just a weak crack in the sidewalk of doubt, but it is a crack nonetheless, that I can make it out and become something more than a brick in the wall of this city. Another lost soul.

I don't know exactly what prompted me to act, though, because I think that it was the mix of a few things. The number one reason being a friend of mine (so touching, right? But I know that you don't want to read about the trials of friendship so I'll skip the ABC Family stuff) who has taught me that if there is a sidewalk of doubt keeping me from becoming who I want to be, then I just have to crack it myself, to make my own possibilities. My boss, my other friends – especially the one that believes in love--, and my dangerously growing self-confidence have also pushed me over the edge that I needed to finally write this essay. I can't thank them enough for believing in me before I even considered believing in myself—even now when I still even barely believe in myself.

And as for the last part of your question, I don't know if I'd make this decision again. But I'm making it now and I'm told that that's all that counts. I know that this probably wasn't the best essay that you've read in your careers as essay-readers and I'm sure that you can get out your red pen and park all of the grammar and spelling errors that riddle this essay but I hope that you can give me a chance. I'm not the perfect candidate for this scholarship, I have no extracurricular that you want to hear about, but I want to make it to a better place in this world. I didn't believe it before but I'm seeing that crack in the sidewalk now and I'm waiting for the day that the crack becomes a big, gaping hole right in the center. Please, just give me a chance. That's all I need.

Sincerely
Luna Rose

"There," I smack the paper down on the counter in front of Mrs. Wilcox. "It's done. Seven hundred words of pure genius."

Mrs. Wilcox looks up from the computer and glances down at the paper. Once she realizes that it's the essay that she's been waiting for me to write for quite a while now, her face lights up. "Oh, Luna, this is wonderful. Way to go, kiddo. Do you mind if I read it?"