Growing up as a little girl I always wanted to be older. Always wanted to be the one to tell others what to do, instead of others telling me. That was until I got older and realized growing up wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows.

 When I was little, I used to love playing around in the dirt getting muddy playing “house” with the neighbor friends. Until the age of 7, where playing in the sand or chasing each other saying “tag your it” meant you’re childish and lame. The new thing was having the most expensive pair of jeans or t-shirt or shoes, and if you didn’t have shoes that were in style you would hear kids whispering behind your back talking about them. This was where life started to flip. Instead of everyone playing with everyone it has now turned into friend groups which were separated into “popular” and “unpopular”. I always tried being in the popular group I never wanted to be talked about by the others for not having my ears pierced or having the off-brand shoes. It wasn’t until I was around 9 years old until I decided to stop caring about what others thought. I started playing with the “uncool” kids because they were more fun to be around and most of all they didn’t sit around judging others for who they are. I never thought it was right talking about others like some kids did, but I knew not to say anything because I didn’t want to be kicked out of the group and feared what they might say.

Some may say middle school was hard, but it was easier than I thought it would be. Everyone stopped caring and we were just there for school. Everyone just wanted to get in and out so they could do after-school activities, there wasn’t much homework, so life was still stress free. That was until high school.

I had known some upperclassmen as an 8th grader so transferring to high school and being a freshman didn’t scare me all that much. I heard horror stories about high school, so I prepared myself for the worst. But it was mostly still like middle school just there for school. No one cared who you were, no one judged (unless of course you’re walking to slow or on the wrong side of the hallway) it was peaceful.

Then came sophomore year, the worst year of my life. I was in after-school activities, then would get a ride straight to studio dance. Come home at 9 o’clock and be bombarded with homework that I had to do for at least two hours because each teacher decided to give me homework each night saying it’ll only take 10 minutes when in reality it takes up to a half an hour and you put that with all the other classes you have, your left with up to 3 hours of homework alone, and at that point I just couldn’t do it all. I started missing class each week saying I had a migraine so I could go home and catch up on homework. My grades started to plummet, making me overwhelmed and then not being eligible for high school dance. But disappointing people wasn’t an option for me, so I told everyone I got it under control, even though I didn’t. My parents told me I had to keep my grades up or they’re pulling me from dance. That’s when I decided I needed to kick it into gear and get my grades up so that’s what I did until the end of the school year.

Then junior year came around and it was easy. It was easier then sophomore year I still would’ve rather been anywhere but school. But I pushed through the year with decent grades and that’s all that really matters. Then I transferred schools for senior year realizing I need a new start for some good, for new beginnings even though it was tough.