thedrifter
05-18-07, 09:18 AM
Looking ahead to a bright future
Leominster mother a symbol of determination and success
BY LINDSAY SAUVAGEAU LSAUVAGEAU@LEOMINSTERCHAMP.COM
Melissa Torres, 28, says she once felt a connection with Holden Caulfield, the protagonist in "The Catcher in the Rye."
"High school was a mess. I wasn't satisfied with life at the time, everyone around me seemed phony. I couldn't relate to anyone, or anything and I wasn't getting any answers in school," she said. "I just wanted to know who I was."
The second oldest of four children, she says her parents (both teachers) had a hard time understanding her struggle through high school. Instead of helping her, their inability to relate pushed her away.
"I distanced myself from friends and family and tried to find myself with people living on the streets," Torres said. "It was a different way of thinking. But I just knew it wasn't what I wanted. I didn't feel right on the streets either."
Torres, who is transferring from Mount Wachusett Community College to Smith College with a full scholarship, fought through an abusive relationship, poverty and post-partum depression. Today she sees only a bright future ahead of herself.
The day her life found direction was the day she enlisted in the Marine Corps.
In the biographical application essay Torres wrote for Smith, she recounts the night before boot camp.
"I remember looking out the window and seeing a billboard towering over the city's buildings," she wrote. "On that black billboard with white lettering, I read the words 'It's never too late to be what you might have been.' This was enough for me to embrace with certainty the possibilities of a military career."
But, Torres said it was really "a nightmare."
"I kept thinking, 'what did I get myself into,'" she said. "Everyone screamed at me, which I was used to, but it was physically and emotionally hard too."
The only female recruit, Torres made it through the worst of boot camp only to find herself in the middle of the California desert.
"I was in Twenty-nine Palms, Calif., where most of the Marines' dessert warfare training takes place," she said. "There was nothing but sand and huge mountains. I thought I was going to see dinosaurs."
Being told that the quickest way to get out was to do really well in the Corps, Torres fought to the top 10 percent of her class. When she found out she would actually be stationed in the desert, she kept on fighting anyway, to prove herself.
"When people expect me to do one thing, I try to prove them wrong. I decided I was going to make sergeant in under three years, which wasn't easy and almost unheard of in female officers," Torres said.
While in the Corps, Torres achieved a perfect testing score of 5.0 for her work and dedication while on base, and did indeed achieve sergeant before her three-year stint was up.
Not long after leaving the Marine Corps, Torres moved herself to Las Vegas to try and make a living as a bartender.
"I took a couple hundred bucks and stayed with friends," she said.
It took nearly six months of scraping by, before Torres landed a decent paying job. However, not more than two months later she was also pregnant.
"When they found out I was pregnant they couldn't fire me, but tried to run me out any way they could," she said.
The casino began giving her 50 to 60 hours a week at a time when her boyfriend was giving her yet another life lesson, what it was like to be in an abusive relationship. He made her work up until two days before she gave birth and took most of her money. She says she made around $1,200 every two weeks, half going to her boyfriend, the rest to maintaining their home and into savings for when the baby was born. In less than a year after reaching Vegas she had accumulated $10,000 in the bank, and in even less time was reduced to nothing.
Her time in Vegas as a mother was spent working, trying to nurse and care for a colicky Lucy, and fighting to get support from her boyfriend. She said a point came when she felt lost and uncertain with life and her body was at an imbalance from the pregnancy. In her application essay, Torres wrote:
"Sometimes I found myself crying because I felt hopeless … Somewhere in the midst of the non-stop crying, lack of support from my boyfriend and lack of sleep, I found myself in what can only be described as a "dark haze of uncertainty" … I remember taking a shower one day and feeling like more tears were coming out of me than the water coming out of the shower head."
Having literally reached her wits end, Torres found support in the family which she had once run from. Moving home in February 2005 to Warwick, Mass., she got a job working at Filene's in Leominster. She went into transitional assistance, but found it to be more harm than help.
"It's an all-or-nothing program. When it runs out, you're left with a low-paying job and less than $2,000 in assets," Torres said. "I made $100 more than their criteria to receive any assistance, so I had to quit my job and because there was nothing else to do I went back to school."
Torres started at MWCC in February 2006, nearly a year after moving home. Finding support all around her at the college through the Visions Program, her advisors encouraged her to apply as a transfer student to Smith.
In the meantime, when Lucy was 2 she was diagnosed with ASD, Atrial Septal Defect, a hole in the wall of the heart, and had to have open-heart surgery. The experience and a newfound love of science have made her a pre-med, biochemistry major.
Melissa says that she is an example that anything is possible with effort and dedication.
"Lucy was my inspiration. I'm 28, a single mother, Hispanic, on welfare using subsidized housing, I don't even have an associate's degree yet," she said. "All of these things make me look like I'm a failure, but I was once told that anything worth doing in this life isn't easy. I've done things I regret, but I'm better now because of it."
Ellie
Leominster mother a symbol of determination and success
BY LINDSAY SAUVAGEAU LSAUVAGEAU@LEOMINSTERCHAMP.COM
Melissa Torres, 28, says she once felt a connection with Holden Caulfield, the protagonist in "The Catcher in the Rye."
"High school was a mess. I wasn't satisfied with life at the time, everyone around me seemed phony. I couldn't relate to anyone, or anything and I wasn't getting any answers in school," she said. "I just wanted to know who I was."
The second oldest of four children, she says her parents (both teachers) had a hard time understanding her struggle through high school. Instead of helping her, their inability to relate pushed her away.
"I distanced myself from friends and family and tried to find myself with people living on the streets," Torres said. "It was a different way of thinking. But I just knew it wasn't what I wanted. I didn't feel right on the streets either."
Torres, who is transferring from Mount Wachusett Community College to Smith College with a full scholarship, fought through an abusive relationship, poverty and post-partum depression. Today she sees only a bright future ahead of herself.
The day her life found direction was the day she enlisted in the Marine Corps.
In the biographical application essay Torres wrote for Smith, she recounts the night before boot camp.
"I remember looking out the window and seeing a billboard towering over the city's buildings," she wrote. "On that black billboard with white lettering, I read the words 'It's never too late to be what you might have been.' This was enough for me to embrace with certainty the possibilities of a military career."
But, Torres said it was really "a nightmare."
"I kept thinking, 'what did I get myself into,'" she said. "Everyone screamed at me, which I was used to, but it was physically and emotionally hard too."
The only female recruit, Torres made it through the worst of boot camp only to find herself in the middle of the California desert.
"I was in Twenty-nine Palms, Calif., where most of the Marines' dessert warfare training takes place," she said. "There was nothing but sand and huge mountains. I thought I was going to see dinosaurs."
Being told that the quickest way to get out was to do really well in the Corps, Torres fought to the top 10 percent of her class. When she found out she would actually be stationed in the desert, she kept on fighting anyway, to prove herself.
"When people expect me to do one thing, I try to prove them wrong. I decided I was going to make sergeant in under three years, which wasn't easy and almost unheard of in female officers," Torres said.
While in the Corps, Torres achieved a perfect testing score of 5.0 for her work and dedication while on base, and did indeed achieve sergeant before her three-year stint was up.
Not long after leaving the Marine Corps, Torres moved herself to Las Vegas to try and make a living as a bartender.
"I took a couple hundred bucks and stayed with friends," she said.
It took nearly six months of scraping by, before Torres landed a decent paying job. However, not more than two months later she was also pregnant.
"When they found out I was pregnant they couldn't fire me, but tried to run me out any way they could," she said.
The casino began giving her 50 to 60 hours a week at a time when her boyfriend was giving her yet another life lesson, what it was like to be in an abusive relationship. He made her work up until two days before she gave birth and took most of her money. She says she made around $1,200 every two weeks, half going to her boyfriend, the rest to maintaining their home and into savings for when the baby was born. In less than a year after reaching Vegas she had accumulated $10,000 in the bank, and in even less time was reduced to nothing.
Her time in Vegas as a mother was spent working, trying to nurse and care for a colicky Lucy, and fighting to get support from her boyfriend. She said a point came when she felt lost and uncertain with life and her body was at an imbalance from the pregnancy. In her application essay, Torres wrote:
"Sometimes I found myself crying because I felt hopeless … Somewhere in the midst of the non-stop crying, lack of support from my boyfriend and lack of sleep, I found myself in what can only be described as a "dark haze of uncertainty" … I remember taking a shower one day and feeling like more tears were coming out of me than the water coming out of the shower head."
Having literally reached her wits end, Torres found support in the family which she had once run from. Moving home in February 2005 to Warwick, Mass., she got a job working at Filene's in Leominster. She went into transitional assistance, but found it to be more harm than help.
"It's an all-or-nothing program. When it runs out, you're left with a low-paying job and less than $2,000 in assets," Torres said. "I made $100 more than their criteria to receive any assistance, so I had to quit my job and because there was nothing else to do I went back to school."
Torres started at MWCC in February 2006, nearly a year after moving home. Finding support all around her at the college through the Visions Program, her advisors encouraged her to apply as a transfer student to Smith.
In the meantime, when Lucy was 2 she was diagnosed with ASD, Atrial Septal Defect, a hole in the wall of the heart, and had to have open-heart surgery. The experience and a newfound love of science have made her a pre-med, biochemistry major.
Melissa says that she is an example that anything is possible with effort and dedication.
"Lucy was my inspiration. I'm 28, a single mother, Hispanic, on welfare using subsidized housing, I don't even have an associate's degree yet," she said. "All of these things make me look like I'm a failure, but I was once told that anything worth doing in this life isn't easy. I've done things I regret, but I'm better now because of it."
Ellie