Maybe it is like this for everyone. The strangers that I pass everyday in the hallway, the people I sit next to on the bus to and from school. It isn’t supposed to be easy, but no one told me that it was going to be this hard.

I thought that high school was the time for self discovery. I thought I was supposed to find myself and what I like to do. Maybe I was just naïve. Everyday it feels like I am losing myself, wading deeper into a sea of oblivion. Everyone is busy with their own lives and I don’t know who i am. With everything moving so quickly and time never stopping, we are losing the meaning behind it all.

Maybe there is no meaning behind it all and this is it. We memorize vocabulary and formulas and the names of the people of the past, and that’s it. We wear our brains out, but never challenge it with imagination or creativity. I am starting to think that high school is a place where you face reality and watch people change. It’s a place for education, but there is little learning.

Maybe I have it all wrong. There has to be a purpose, and maybe the goal of high school is to find that purpose. But how can everyone around us expect us to take five honors classes and extracurricular activities? What about friends? How can they expect us to do the things that we enjoy when we are so busy worrying about what looks good on our college application? How can we be confident when teachers are blaming us for failing the test that we studied for all night long? This is hard. People are changing, expectations are rising, and I do not understand myself. Has it always been this hard for everyone?

I lie awake, unable to fall into the calm, wondering what I am doing wrong.

        
I can’t do it.
I’m not happy.

I hate living in this constant worry that I’m not going to go anywhere in life. I become the timid and scared little girl again.

I do not understand how I can be confident and comfortable when all I receive is criticism. I’ve been made smaller in a big world, and smaller yet in the vast universe. I am only fourteen. I should not be like this, but I am.

 Maybe this is how it is supposed to be. It’s hard. It’s high school. It’s called life and look how funny everything is turning out to be. This is not what I expected, but that’s okay. It’s okay because even though the world is big and I am so small, I am going to continue because I have been taught to do so.
It’s just high school.

Understanding this was difficult, but I did it and I’m still doing it. I am here. And in four years, I won’t be. So even though I’ve been ignored and mistreated and left to figure things out myself, when I get to college, nothing will matter anymore. It’s okay because even though the teachers expect you to only talk when participating and devote your whole life to that one class, they won’t matter in five years. Even though the Spanish teacher does not realize that I have been crying the entire period and yells at me for talking instead, it’s okay because I got through it.

 Maybe I should not worry too much. At times, it is depressing and at others, anxiety is limiting. But that is normal. Kind of messed up, but normal. I have survived it so far. I have not given up yet. And I’ve done it all by myself. Right now, in this moment. This is the time I have done something “big” on my own. Everyday in high school is a struggle. My head is pounding and my whole body aches, but I am okay because maybe, just maybe, everything is meant to be like this.