I used to be great. I used to be the best. Everyone I worked with said I’d rule the world someday. They said I was unstoppable.

In the middle of 2009, right in the heart of the economic crisis, my dad lost his job and was starting to drown in debt. My college tuition, which was extremely expensive, was sinking my father little by little. I was a student in the best Radio and Television school in the whole country. I studied with kids of wealthy, well-known families. I saw the daughter of the Brazilian equivalent of Donald Trump graduate. I was taught by the best professors, men who ruled networks, women who had decades of work done in the best companies, amazing careers.

I didn’t want to be the death of my father, so I took matters into my own hands and switched to another college, with a much lower tuition. Soon after that, I lost my internship.

I used to love my internship. I worked for one of the country’s best audio production houses. We had the biggest clients; we only worked with the best. I saw amazing things be created, I met incredible people. Even though I had college from 7:30 to 12:50 and then work from 14:00 to 20:00, I loved my life. My college assignments were demanding, true challenges, and being able to work with audio production, it all made me beyond happy. After my internship was over, the company was still facing the great 2009 crisis, and couldn’t hire me. They had to let me go.

Changing colleges wasn’t that bad. Having a semester focused on music and audio production was all I could’ve asked for. A few months later, I took a chance in the country’s biggest broadcasting network’s internship program.

It was the dream job, with an amazing salary, an outstanding future promise, only the best people to work with. It was all any radio and television student could ask for. There were hundreds of thousands trying for this job. I passed all the stages and reached the final interview; it came down to me and 3 other people in the end. I didn’t get in. Today, I can see why, I can see what I did wrong. But I can’t turn back time to fix it.

I’ve thought about it a million times, how my life would’ve been if I had got the job. It seemed like after that, the downward spiral I was in was getting me closer to the bottom, and much faster.

I ended up stuck in this internship. The job itself wasn’t demanding, it was very routine-like, there was no room for professional growth, the salary was crappy and the working hours during the weekends didn’t allow me to see my family very often. I only got by because of my coworkers.  I hated my job.

One day, I was waiting to be interviewed for this other crappy job in a crappy company, but with a slightly better salary. I remember sitting in the waiting room and wondering what had happened to me. I had once sat in the waiting rooms of the greatest networks in the country: Globo, Band, Rede Tv, SBT, Cultura. And there I was, sitting there waiting, all because of a slightly better salary. I felt like a hooker. I didn’t get that job either.

I once had only the best for myself. I was one of the best. I settled for a crappy college, a crappy job, crappy relationships. A crappy life. In this crappy scenery, I didn’t have to push myself to be the best, I settled for being ordinary. The person who used to be great, I don’t know her anymore. I don’t know how to get her back. I don’t even think it’s worth getting her back when I’m still in such a crappy life. I think I lost it all, the brilliance, the promising future, the happiness. I think that part of me died and whoever stayed here is unaware of what to do with life or whether it’s worth to keep going.