High school was perhaps the worst four years of my life. With the exception of a few very close friends (I thank God to this day for Shara, Rachel, and Heather) and getting the experience of heart-brake and braking a few hearts of my own, I was often pretty miserable.
I was the shy girl with acne who didn't even begin to develop a figure until halfway through high school. I was so painfully shy that some mistook it for being stuck up and others just didn't even notice me. I had overprotective parents who didn't allow me to go to middle school dances and events. I didn't belong to the "Mannington crowd", or any other crowd or group for that matter. I was a band geek, math field day nerd, track/cross country middle-of-the-pack runner. I really had no idea who I was, to tell you the truth.
Today, I don't care if I fit in and I finally feel very comfortable as just me. But every teenager wants to fit in and be "normal", and I was certainly no exception to that. I remember the cruel comments that others thought I didn't hear. I remember the cruel comments about me said right to my face. And, I remember the mean things I did and said as well. Teenagers just aren't the nicest people, including me.
It's bad enough to not fit in with your peers, but even my teachers couldn't remember me. I was the straight A student who always did her work. They paid no attention to me, as far as I can tell even looking back to this day. Don't get me wrong, there were a few good ones, but a lot of the teachers that I even respected spent class time lecturing us about what a horrible job teaching was, and recommending that we never do it ourselves. They may have done a good job teaching me math, but they also made me steer clear of something I thought I'd do someday, and they helped inspire me to leave my home state of West Virginia as soon as I could. I am so thankful that my kids' have had much better teachers all along the way. Instead of good teachers being the exception as it seemed to be for me, it has been the general rule for them, thank goodness.
In my high school, teachers actually voted on who would get into National Honor Society. It was a big deal my junior year when one of the Valedictorians wasn't voted in. I had one and only one B one semester of high school, which positioned me just below the four Valedictorians. No one seemed to care the next year when I still didn't get voted into National Honor Society. I was the only one who graduated with highest honors in my high school without the NHS patch that year, and probably for most other years. My name was the name left out of the list of highest honors graduates in the yearbook.
It hurt, and yet, even then, I felt a sense of pride at sticking out. I tried to showcase not having the NHS patch the day I graduated, and hoped others would notice. I felt a sense of pride that the following year, they changed the way NHS "voting" was done, having to at least list more information (GPA, activities, etc.) instead of giving teachers just a list of names to vote on. So maybe someone actually did pay attention.
I can honestly say I didn't learn much in high school. Math felt like the only subject I really advanced in at all, and even then we had warnings from previous high school graduates about how difficult Calculus would be in college - stories of North Marion graduates having to take it over, failing the first time or struggling to just get by.
I was so ready to get away that I was disappointed at first to be going to college as close as I did to home. But it was immediately different and invigorating to be away. College is where I bloomed, not high school. College is where the classes challenged me, where I was around more diverse people, where I met my soul mate. I was still in West Virginia, but it seemed a world away.
I was determined it would be different for my kids. That they would be challenged through high school and not just after. That's why I'm so happy they've had the opportunities to advance that they have.
But even then, I don't want their glory days to be in high school. I don't want them to ever look back and think, yeah, those four years were the best of my life. I wouldn't even say that about college. For me, every season has brought growth and new challenges. If you asked me the best season of my life so far, I'd quite honestly say my 40s, and I hope the next decade my answer changes to that season.
I want my kids to have the same, only better. Isn't that what we all want?
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