We had a good run, but it’s time to say goodbye.
Seven long years came and went, and here I am left to fend for myself, taking on all of the responsibilities of a real-life adult. The seven years between age thirteen and nineteen are some of the most peculiar times in a person’s life. You’re expected to figure out who you are, what you love, what you don’t love, who you love, and what you want to do with the rest of your entire life. The teenage years are full of laughs, tears, torn up friendships, rekindling of old flames, new experiences, a whole lot of change, and important lessons learned along the way.
How to lose and gain relationships with new people frequently was probably one of the biggest tasks I had to learn as a teenager. Life happens and things change causing you to fall out of touch with old friends and lovers and gain new relationships with others. It’s both sad and exciting at the same time, but it’s something every teenager goes through. Transitioning from middle school to high school to college all happens within those short seven years, making people drift from one social group to another and then leaving everything you’ve ever known behind to face a whole new, big world on your own.
Another very hard thing I learned as a teenager, as did many other people, was how to deal with people who don’t like you. As an adolescent you think that someone not liking you is literally the end of the world. Feeling as if everyone has their eyes on you all of the time becomes exhausting, especially when everyone seems to be viewing you through judgmental glasses. Bullies are common in middle schools and high schools especially, and many people go through the traumatic experience of being bullied at some point in their lives. A lot of adults view bullying as only happening in schools, but what I’ve learned throughout my teenage years is that there are bullies everywhere in life. They could come in the forms of parents, bosses, co-workers, or even professors in college.
Figuring out who you are and where you belong in this world is another thing all teenagers have to face at some point. To some, their aspirations and dreams come easily and readily, but for most, it takes a lot of work and introspection. That is, looking inward and understanding yourself. Self-discovery is a huge key to success and without it, I’m not sure that you can ever be truly happy and fulfilled. If you don’t know what makes you happy, you’ll never get it. My advice would be to take a summer, or a time when you have a lot of time to yourself, and spend quality time with yourself. Go on walks, lay in bed in the pitch black with nothing but quiet surrounding you, or try something new that you’ve never tried before. Give things a chance and figure out what makes you happy. Really think with no distractions and no one telling you what you should do or say. It’ll be then that you really start to understand what little nook and cranny you fit into in this big, fast-developing world.
In your teenage years, more than anything, you learn what’s important in life. The shirt you wore to the party, that time you feel asleep in class when everyone laughed, and the ugly haircut you got in 9th grade will never matter to you after high school. Honestly, it probably won’t even matter a month down the road. Teenagers have a tendency to overreact and think the world is ending when the smallest thing goes wrong, but the biggest lesson I learned was if it won’t matter in a year, don’t spend your time worrying about it. This goes for almost anything: your high school breakup, the failed test, your “hideous” senior pictures. In retrospect, the world is so much bigger than appearance and popularity status. It’s not until after high school that you really start understanding these things. Figure out what matters and invest your time in making sure you attribute the majority of your time to those things. Spend time with your family, be there your friends, work your ass off in school, get enough sleep, and love yourself in the process.
Turning twenty this week has really made me reflect back on the last seven years of my life. They’ve definitely been the handful of years that have shaped who I am, who I want to be, and where I’m going. I’ve learned so many lessons, some superficial ones like not to take five shots of vodka back-to-back and how it feels to be hungover, but mostly more significant lessons like not waiting until midnight the night before a paper is due to look at the assignment or when someone genuinely reaches out to you for help, don’t let them down. You might be the only person they trust and you can end up saving a life.
So here’s to the years that shaped me: thank you, but goodbye. You’ve brought a lot of happiness to my life, but you’ve also shown me a lot of heartbreak. Lessons either way, but it’s time to leave those years in the past. I’m not sure how good I’ll be at “adulting” right away, but I’ll use the tools and preparations I’ve been given these past several years to figure it out. Two decades down, eight to go.
