Editor’s note: The Times Recorder is profiling seniors from Muskingum County schools. They were nominated by school administrators.
ZANESVILLE – The back pain still flares up from time to time for Zanesville High School senior Jolands DeJesus who is focused on a positive future of personal growth, meeting people and joy.
Six years ago, Jolanda DeJesus jumped off a bridge due the bullying, racism, mental health battles and abusive situations she faced. The seventh-grader broke her sternum and three plates in her spine.
“People will try to get into your brain,” Jolanda shared. “But now I’m like, ‘OK, block them out. If it’s negative toward me, ‘Block it out.’ If I let that get to me again, I know that I’ll go back to that place, and I don’t want to go back. There’s too much negativity, but there are so many positive things. There are so many positive things that can be happening.”
And positive things have happened.
Now, she’s part of Zanesville High School’s band, a tennis player, a painter, an archer, a foodie, a dog walker, an adventurer at heart – and a senior set to graduate May 23.
“I just love being a part of (the marching band) and being able to compete and meet new people and just have that experience… It’s why I want to travel, because of the meeting people and getting to know about other people’s lives,” Jolanda shared. “I talk about it all the time.”
One day she hopes to visit countries like Germany, Korea, the United Kingdom, and Argentina, but it’s only one aspect of the future she envisions.
She’s got a career plan too – at least a loose one for the next two years.
Jolanda will pursue business management at Zane State College and wants to become an entrepreneur, ideally one that focuses on banner design and customization, and then potentially cybersecurity later.
For the summer it’ll be a little more free-spirited, but she might return to her role as a barista, one that she enjoyed last summer. Before that, she was looking forward to cap off her high school career with her second school trip to Philadelphia. She waxed poetic briefly about a certain pizza place a few years ago, and she hoped to find it again.
The food, which she admittedly loves, and the different cultures are two parts of why she wants to travel, but it’s also about people. Like friends that helped her fundraise for the school trip through candy bar sales, the one who gets her out and about, and another who helped her set up bank accounts.
Jolanda wants to meet more people. She wants to share with them so they can share with others.
“Because if you can spread joy, you can have those people spread more joy,” Jolanda added. “There’s so much negativity, if you make somebody happy, they can share that with other people too.”
It’s one more positive.
Shawn Digity is a reporter for the Zanesville Times Recorder. He can be emailed at sdigity@gannett.com or found on X at @ShawnDigityZTR.
This article originally appeared on Zanesville Times Recorder: Zanesville HS senior embraces life and dreams big after difficult past
Reporting by Shawn Digity, Zanesville Times Recorder / Zanesville Times Recorder
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