What do you see? | Kaytlen Bennett

When you look at me, what do you see? Do you see a girl’s life has been perfect? Do you see a spoiled brat or something else? What do you see? I wonder if this is what you see…

I was born May 11, 1989, to a family of three girls and one boy with parents struggling to keep their marriage together. About a year after I was born, they lost that struggle and were soon divorced. I was so young that all I remember is asking my mom why my dad didn’t have sleepovers at our house like the other kids’ dads. I never really understood it until I got a little older.

Three years later my mom became a flight attendant. She was gone three to five days a week for work trying to be able to support five growing kids. Times were rough. I only got new clothes at the beginning of the school year and sometimes at Christmas. When my mom was gone we would stay with my dad who would drop us off at our house early in the morning on his way to work. One of my three sisters would get me ready and walk me to my babysitter and then go to school. I was actually too young to really realize how hard life really was.

My parents eventually got remarried: to separate people. Life got better as it got more complicated. I had new siblings, new parents and a new way of life. There was a second father figure that was living in my house, a stepmom who had different ways of raising her kids and us and a stay-at-home-mom. Life had changed I as a kid I hated it. I hated the fact that my parents were never going to get back together. I hated that I had new parents. I even hated that my mom was home because it meant less time at my dad’s and it threw off the rhythm that we had developed.

Now let’s fast-forward through elementary school, Jr. High and High School. Two of my sisters have been divorced and remarried. My eldest sister is in a marriage that frightens us. I’ve sent out a missionary who I broke up with for another soon to be missionary. I’ve graduated High School with Honors. I’m now a freshman in college, an adult.

Life has now opened its doors to me. I now have to worry about things like I’ve never had to: phone bills, possibilities of marriage, troubles with controlling parents, careers. I’m four hours away from my comfort zone in life. I’m living in a strange place with people I’ve never known. Life seems to just be dragging me on. At times I feel hopeless, alone, not worthy, not smart enough and scared.

These past couple months have been the hardest months of my life. I’ve felt homesick more often than I have not. I’ve had to try and establish relationships with people who I’ve never known. I’ve had to do a crash course in growing up. I’ve learned that responsibility isn’t all that it is cracked up to be.

I have hope that after I finish this first official semester that I will begin to get into a groove with this strange new world. Hope is all I have that is keeping me going. I hope that someday all of this work will pay off. I hope that I won’t end up the way my family expects me to: divorced. I hope that someday I will make a difference in this world, maybe save someone’s life. I hope that I will marry my Prince Charming and live happily ever after. I hope that I will be somebody.

Now if you are wondering why I am opening up and sharing a part of my life and my feelings on life, I’ll tell you why. It’s because I fear that I will end up as just a blur, a nameless face in a crowd or someone no one remembers. If by reading this you know just a small bit about who I am and what I’ve been through then maybe you will understand who I’ve become and my potential. Now maybe someday I won’t be forgotten. Maybe you will remember me, whoever you are, even if it’s just my name, you would still have remembered me. Then and only then maybe I will live on in your subconscious mind, barely remembered, but remembered still. Thank you.