i went to one of those fancy scholarship dinners last night and even after all these years it still gets to me you know it was at some big old mansion all chandeliers and those tiny little appetizers that cost more than my first car and everyone there was so… polished like they were born knowing which fork to use and how to make small talk about art auctions i just felt like an imposter the whole time i wore the dress i saved for this kind of thing a simple black one but i saw other students in stuff that looked like it walked straight off a runway and i kept tugging at my neckline all night like it was choking me which it kind of was not literally obviously but you get what i mean there was this one guy he was probably early twenties maybe a phd student i dont know but he had this air about him this easy confidence and he started talking about his gap year in europe trekking through the alps and volunteering at some vineyard in tuscany and i just stood there nodding thinking about my gap year which was spent working two jobs to help my mom with the bills and try to save for community college he asked me what i planned to do after graduation and i mumbled something about applying for teaching positions maybe doing some research if i could swing it and he just smiled that kind of pitying smile people give when they know you’re not really in their league but they’re too polite to say it outright i ended up in a corner with a glass of lukewarm sparkling water watching everyone else mingle so effortlessly it was like they were performing a play they’d all rehearsed for their entire lives and i was just an understudy who hadn’t even read the script i kept thinking about my parents about how hard they worked so i could even be there in that room studying at this university and how proud they would be if they saw me but then i also felt this weird shame like i was betraying them by being there by trying to pretend i belonged in that world it’s this constant push and pull you know between wanting to honor where i came from and trying to fit into this new place this new version of myself that’s supposed to be smart and successful and totally at ease in a room full of millionaires i just wanted to go home and put on my old sweats and read a book and forget about the whole thing but then i also think about the scholarship about what it means about the opportunities and the pressure to make the most of it and i wonder if i’m just being ungrateful it’s like i’m constantly wearing a costume and sometimes it fits okay but other times it just feels so tight it’s suffocating and i just want to rip it off and scream that i’m just a scholarship kid from a working-class family and i dont know why i’m even here sometimes. i just dont.