My name is Meagan. There is nothing extraordinary about me. I am a seventeen year old, counting down the days till graduation, just like every other senior in the world. I’ve accomplished a lot in my short seventeen years of life, as have I made mistakes. I’m not perfect; show me one person who is. I’m on the path of self discovery, which, as I have come to realize is not an easy conduit. Trials and tribulations have presented themselves in great abundance. Adolescence; something we all must face, and fight to overcome.
I clearly remember the last time I had to move. I was eleven going on twelve. It was the summer before my seventh grade year. At that point, starting a new school wasn’t really THAT big of a deal.
I spent the next four and a half years going to Mountain Home. I made four of the best, most amazing friends anyone could ever ask for. When I had to leave them I was crushed. I’ve never had to deal with letting go of people I was friends with for so long. Leaving people I’ve known for a year and leaving people I’d been around for most of my teenage life was so much harder than I had expected.
Over the majority of the summer, I convinced myself that I wasn’t going to meet anyone that didn’t already have their “established” group of friends. It was my senior year, what else could I expect? I was sure that the majority of people I was about to call my classmates had been at this school for most, if not all of their high school years.
I soon realized that starting a new high school was way different than being the “new girl” in elementary or even middle school. It wasn’t as easy to gain “approval” of my classmates now as it had been back then.
I felt like a freshman all over again. However, at least as a Freshman I had my friends; people I knew. I could very easily name well over ninety percent of my class. Here, at this new school, I knew no one.
I am usually not a “shy” person. I am very outgoing and bubbly. But for some unexplainable reason none of my previous qualities followed me to this new school.
As the day progressed, I was dreading lunch time more than anything. I didn’t want to be the weird girl that was forced to sit in the corner by herself due to her lack of friends. Yes, I know what you’re thinking. It was the first day of school, there were bound to be other new students in my position, right? Well that may have been true, and I’m sure it was, but in my mind I didn’t see it that way. I saw it as: I was alone.
I am still struggling to meet new people, haven’t really made much progress yet. I just can’t seem to put myself out there. I’ve never had to worry about what others thought of me because socially, I’ve been around the same exact people for the last five years. I didn’t realize that as I grew older things that didn’t use to be so important, all the sudden seemed so dramatic and life-changing.
I’ve been told over and again by my mom that I will eventually have to enter the “real” world and that the worry I have over all of the things that have happened in high school will almost immediately evaporate upon said entrance.
What adults fail to realize is that every day in a teenager’s life is a battle. We’re no longer children, but not quite adults. We struggle to make the right decisions. We struggle to find out who we are and what we stand for. We struggle to just fit in.
As I looked at through the list of topics we were given to write about I only found one that was applicable to me. And believe me; I struggled for the longest time, deciding which moment in my life to write about, after all, there were so many. So, I decided to look at the bigger picture. And it occurred to me that all of my struggles have come with being a teenager. From there, it just made sense; it sort of “clicked”. And although I still have about a year and a half left, I honestly believe that being a teenager has been the hardest experience in my life; something I’m sure that I will carry with me for the rest of my existence.