sufficient

Yes, she graduated from high school. However, even though it was paid for, she never took the SAT or ACT. Which meant no track scholarship and no college. Further, she pretty much tanked in the state track meet her senior year and didn't place in any events. A few months later, some of her friends gave a possible explanation for that: maybe it was because she was in the first trimester of her pregnancy. She wouldn't show her face at school the next semester, but the one time she did call me, I asked her if she had a job. "Why would I have a job?" she responded. I was speechless.

She had a healthy, precious baby girl in January and started coming up to the school again. She was planning to take the SAT and a local school had promised her a track scholarship if she broke a set score. I talked to her once over the summer and not again until this week. And, in spite of it all, after that conversation, my confidence that she will make it has returned.

No, she didn't get that requisite SAT score, but she does start class in a few weeks at a community college, where she is running track. She has a Pell grant to pay her tuition and a small stipend. Welfare pays for daycare, but she doesn't have a car and has a hard time on the bus, getting from track practice to pick the baby up on time. I asked why she didn't find a center closer to school, but she told me that she'd have to go through another county's welfare system from the start and it's too complicated.

I asked if the baby's father was helping out in anyway- he's pretty much rolling in it. She said no. He'd been paying for daycare, but has stopped. He says he's doing lots for the baby, but it's clear that he's not actually doing anything. His new girlfriend doesn't like it when she's around. So I feel sorry for her. She's staying with different relatives for short periods of time and it sounds like, except for running, she's pretty miserable.

Back to that confidence that she'll make it thing: In spite of all the crap in her life, it sounds like she's motivated. She's fed up with bouncing from house to house, fed up with riding the bus, fed up with the complications of welfare, fed up with not having the father share responsibility for her child. She told me that she doesn't like going up to school anymore, because she's embarrassed, embarrassed that she's not doing anything with her life.

And I'm glad. Because it sounds like she's finally sick enough of it all to do what she needs to do and be an adult and get out. And for that, I am thankful.