I didn’t quite understand until now. I feel like I wasted so much of my time. Why was I like this? In 7th grade I was sitting in the counselor's office after having a breakdown. My counselor was notified that I had ran out of class. It had happened in the hallway where she caught me in a corner crying. It wasn’t the first time, you see, I tended to do this thing where when things weren’t going okay on the inside, I wouldn’t handle it the right way. My anxiety , my sadness would consume me and Id run out to do something stupid that Id later regret or I would simply find a place no one would be at and crawl up into a ball sobbing. That day in the counselor's office my counselor had of course asked me what had happened this time.

I couldn't really say right away, it was hard for me. I got into this state, this unbearable state that causes me to freeze up not uttering a word. So I just sat there in my thoughts. 

       I finally was able to tell my counselor, Mrs.Melvin what had been the cause of my melt down. She knew I was going through things at home and I was, but this time it wasn’t anything at home that troubled me during that time. I had gotten a C in English. English was and still is my favorite subject. I often put my whole heart and thoughts down into my responses. Being able to do so means a lot to me, being able to express myself, so, when I saw that I had gotten a poor grade on my assignment It saddened me. Clique I know. But it meant a lot to me. I kept thinking to my self, “I shouldve done better!” “im so stupid!”  “I am a failure!”. I even told her what I had thought of myself . She looked at me with a worried and sad look. We sat there in silence for a couple seconds until she spoke up, “You did your best, you are still young and have so much to look forward to. You are being too hard on yourself”. Those words made me realize how hard on myself I was actually being. When I saw my grade I didn’t think I just reacted. Her words made me realize that I wasn’t perfect, no one is, and I overreacted on a grade that I had gotten for just one assignment and I wasn't satisfied with it but that didn’t mean I did poorly just because of the grade I had gotten. 

       That had happened often. Every time I had gotten a poor grade I would begin to put myself down, and I'd simply work harder and harder. I was older than half the kids in my grade, too,  so, I felt responsible to be more mature and to work harder than them. Also my life at home wasn’t the greatest, at some point I had realized that I didn't want to be the person my parents became. I wanted better, I wanted to be better. 

I was so hard on myself, I stressed my self out everyday not reallizing how precious time was.   What had changed that day was that I began to have a little more fun, of course not right away but it took me some time. Now that I am eighteen looking back at that day and the rest of the days that came after l was still hard on myself and realized that I did not have as much fun as I thought I did even after that day. I wasted one of the greatest years of my life and I cannot get that back. I am now eighteen and yet I'm still hard on myself but I am learning to have fun, little by little I am learning to take it easy. I wish I did things a little differently, I wish I prioratized fun as much as I prioritized school work. I made mistakes just like everyone else. Turning 18 made me realize that I wasted the best years of my life being too hard on myself and it also made me realize that I still have so much to learn and look forward to.