WITH LOVE, MATTHEW

01

C H A P T E R O N E

There are a lot of things about this life that I don't know, for example, I don't know when I'll be able to pay off my student loans, I don't know when I'll be able to afford the repairment for my car, and I don't know what I'm going to have for breakfast tomorrow at the time I'm writing this. But despite all of this, I have come to the conclusion that I do know one thing;

The world is completely and utterly against me.

I'm not the dramatic type. I never was. I know the weight that the phrase carries and I do not say it lightly. When I say that the world is against me, I mean it sincerely. Truthfully. Honestly. As a matter of fact, why don't I just show you? Explain my whole life story to you; let you be the judge. Now, the question is, where do I begin?

How about the time that I thought I was going to become a doctor? I bet you'd like to hear that one. I had just turned twenty-one, I had finished my undergraduate degree in neuroscience and was ready to apply for my graduate degree. During this time, I had saved enough tuition for med school for at least two whole years. I had worked my ass off in high school, balancing three different part-time jobs, and then later balancing four in college to be able to save that much. To be able to give me time and freedom to take my graduate degree seriously.

I was this...THIS! close to enrolling into my first year as a medical student when all of a sudden all of my tuition money went to my sister. I mean, sure, family helps family and blah blah blah. I was always helping my family. Always. Never once did my family decide to help me. Never did they ever offer one single word of advice. Or comfort. Or love.

But my sister...Ha...she got it all. Why? I'm not sure. Was it because my mother believed that she was the chosen one? That the Gods above had chosen her to be the successor of this family? That she was the one that seemed to be more promising? Nevermind that I was on my way to becoming a doctor...my sister was still deemed as the more prosperous, intelligent, special child.

So special that my parents had forced me to divert my tuition money to her bank account so that she could chase her dream of becoming an actress in Hollywood. And the worst thing? Is that she made it. So yeah, some may call it a mother's intuition...or maybe it was just luck. Or maybe, and this is the more likely explanation, is that the world truly hates me. Maybe I was never meant to become a doctor...Or successful in the first place. Because my sister already had that role.

So, just like that, I was expected to give up my dream for the sake of my sister. I had no interest in taking out a student loan to continue my medical dream. Scrap that, I had no interest in taking out any sort of loan. Period. It was just a personal decision. I had no intention of backtracking on it. Do I regret it now? Sorta.

But I digress.

To further add salt to the wound, I thought I'd become an Olympic athlete as well. I wasn't even naive about it, either. I was honestly a pretty good basketball player. I was the star of my high school basketball team -- I had won several trophies, and I was team captain since sophomore year. I was serious. I was so serious that I had been recruited by the National Basketball Association to represent the United States at the Junior Olympics. Of course, I agreed. You'd be crazy not to.

I broke my arm a week before the games.

I never got a second chance.

So I guess, now that you read that, you must agree right? I am completely miserable. Absolutely devastated. Maybe there are people that are worse off, I don't know. Maybe I am selfish, I don't know. Maybe I'm just too sensitive, I don't know. But I do know that not one thing has gone my way since I was born.