What no one (me) tells you about their junior year in high school.

 

I finished my junior year, which was absolutely bizzarre. I swear I blinked, and all of the sudden I was a senior with a hot boyfriend. I might have briefly discussed how amazing my sophomore year was. But I really don't think you could have given me a better first year of high school.

Countless times, Ill look back to my sophomore year, and my heart just aches. I miss everyone I was friends with, I miss everything about being the youngest in school. No one cares about the sophomores so you just kind of cha-cha-slide your way through the year being way too chill and innocent, but still hard core and grown up too, because like, you're in high school! I honestly loved school. Not neccesarily the school aspect of it, but the social aspect. And I miss that. I miss being friends with everyone.

I got so sick of hearing the world tell me how hard high school is, how hard the social pressures are. Or on the other hand, everyone saying, "High school is so easy! wait until you get into the real world."
I was annoyed. Just let me do my thing! High School is a piece of cake. But this year I discovered what all those sad tumblr posts warned me about.

Life for a sixteen year old girl in the middle of high school, is real hard. Real hard. First of all, everyone told me this would be the best year. So I already felt like Tom in 500 days of summer who slowly watched his expecations meet reality. Only mine wasn't a well made indie film starring zooey deschannel.

Heres what went down.

I lost my best friend.

I started hating my physical appearance.

School was stressing me out.

Fighting with my parents was becoming part of my daily routine.

 & I quickly started losing touch with all of the people I was once close with.

I didn't know how to have balance in my life. 

I would cry multiple times a week. I hate that Im one of those people who shuts everyone out when I need help, but I am. Im getting better at letting people help me, but in those hard times, I built walls so high and I didn't let anyone know how I truly felt. A couple times, a sad tweet would come out (THEY JUST DO OKAY) and some sweet people would text me wanting to know if I was okay. I would get so shy and uncomfortable and act completely fine. That, I became good at. Acting happy and confident around my peers, but shutting myself in my room and listening to youth lagoon. (DONT EVER DO THAT) and one of my days, where I felt low and sad, and sassy and upset about the smallest of things like my hair not doing what I wanted it to, or not knowing the wifi password.

(the committee of over dramatic sixteen year old girls, begin to nod and scribble across their clip boards)

I came across this little quote.

It wasn't a quote that jumped out at me. It wasn't anything flashy, but I read it, I probably nodded, and reblogged it without giving it a second thought. But I saw it again and so I read it again... and again. and again. Until I was reading each specific word, and it changed everything. What if we all did this? It was brilliant! What if we all forgot about the fights, embarassments, sadness, anger & silly problems of our day to day life? Dont get me wrong, im not saying we should ignore the important things in life, and I am a firm believer in a good cry, to solve every problem in the world. But life just doesn't work like that.

Life is a total schemer, im convinced.

Life will always throws you little messages of happiness. and those who are looking, will find it.

Lets face, it youre not going to find happiness if youre looking for reasons to be upset. And when youre life is hard, thats often what you want to do. But, after I started applying this quote into my every day life, I found myself crying tears of joy, at the sunsets. Or the snow melting. Or getting a good grade in a hard class.

Instead of making myself upset over little things, I changed my perspective and found the little things that brought me joy.

 - Instead of being bitter towards someone who abandoned me, I would think of ten reasons why she was the most awesome person in the entire world.

- Instead of looking in the mirror and saying "Dang not today shawty" I told myself I was a babe every morning before I left to school. (and some days, I believed it.)

- the school thing was easier than I thought. I started enjoying my time there, realizing that soon, i would never have to come back.

- I started appreciating my parents, and our relationship is now stronger than ever.

- I began to reach out to people I lost touch with, instead of pouting that no one ever texts me anymore.

I became a new person. So happy couldn't stand it. Coming out of junior year, I thought I hated it. I thought it was the worst year of my life. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I learned that life was hard, and life wasn't fair, but it was also so beautiful, and awesome if I just paid attention to it.

And that was one of the most important lessons i’ll ever learn.

A lesson that no teacher at Timpanogos High School could have ever taught me.