Ever since I was young, everyone has always told me that I am always positive.  That no matter what, I will have a smile on my face.  But for a while, everyone always asked if something is wrong.  They told me that I didn't smile as much as I used to.  And the truth is, I noticed it to.  The conclusion I came to is this: I’m too stressed out.
       

It all started when I joined the cross country team.  My new schedule was to go to school, go to practice for an hour, eat an hour later than I was used to, do my homework later than I had before, have free time for about 45 minutes, then go to bed.  As I contemplated on my new schedule, I noticed a few bugs in the system.  The first that I noticed was that I ate dinner later than usual.  When I would get home, my family would have already been done with their food, so I would have to eat without them.  And right afterward, I needed to start my homework.
       

When I would do my homework, I worked endlessly on all that we were assigned. Plus, knowing that I would get more in high school really got me nervous. When I would finally finish, I had to work on projects that my team and I were behind on in school. These projects would consume my free time. And after I worked on that for a while, I needed to go to bed. I could never have anytime to myself. Just constant straining to do work, work, work. The only time I had to myself was on the weekends.
       

And then, a couple of my friends and I got a letter. It said we were selected out of our school to join a program for advanced students. This program preps us for high school and offers tuition free scholarship for those that do well in the program. They also give us homework to do over the month. Since my week was always jam-packed, I now had to work on weekends, too.  With all the constant struggle to work day after day was very hard for me.  I didn’t think there would ever be an end.
       

But luckily, things started to change. Cross country season ended, and the projects I’d been working on were finally over with. So now I could have a bit of free time at the end of the day. And then, finally, after all the struggle and patience, school was over. It felt like a heavy weight was being lifted off of me.  As I look back at this troubling experience, I wonder if there are others that have been through experiences that were stressful like mine, if not worse. To those of you that read this and are caught in this whirlwind of stress, just remember that it will be over sooner than you think. And I would know, I’ve been through it too.