So this is it.

Four years gone in the blink of an eye, and yet I can’t find the right words to describe how they’ve been.

Despite that minor detail however, I’ll try my best to sum up what I learned, what I thought I knew and what I never saw coming. I will try to the best of my ability to clearly depict what high school has done to me.

So starting with what I learned.

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The first point I would like to make is that friends aren’t always what or who they seem to be, and even if you think they’ve given you the world, there’s probably more to the story then they’re letting on. This was an impossibly hard lesson to learn throughout freshman and sophomore year, especially considering that I hadn’t really broken out of my quiet phase yet. However this was one of the most valuable lessons that I could have learned. Without it I wouldn’t have the sense to surround myself with the people I have in my life right now, and I definitely wouldn’t have become as independent as I am.

Now for point number two: High school isn’t easy. Experiencing high school first hand isn’t easy, then again nobody ever said it was going to be, and if you were told that just know that it is a blatant lie. It’s hard work, dedication and a bucket load of stress. You’ll cry more than you planned to, and no doubt you’ll lose a lot more sleep then you’d like to, not to mention holding up your own standings in the social hierarchy will cause you to change more than you should. Just know this: The stress, the pain, the anxiety, the constant fear of judgment and so on are part of what will mold you. It’s part of what will make you who you are. So there’s no shame in that.

My last point I didn’t learn until this year, and it is that it’s OK to do what you want. Now that sounds like common sense right? At least we would all like to think that. Some people in my generation do truly live by that stand point, and I can’t begin to describe to you how truly admirable that is to me. I was confused, and I still feel down from time to time. However now that I’ve let myself pursue what I like, pursue what makes me happy without worrying about what everyone else thinks, I feel like I can honestly say I can breathe easy again. This by far is one of the most important lessons I learned, and I can only hope that anyone who reads through this and is just starting out high school learns this. I promise, it’s the best thing you can ask for.

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OK. So ever since I was little, well littler for those who actually know me in person, I’ve always been sort of a know-it-all. Whether it came to finding directions to my favorite sushi restaurant or an intense debate as to whether a hot dog was sandwich or not, I always had to not only know the answer, but prove my answer was undoubtedly right.

With that said, here’s to what I thought I knew during my four years of high school.

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So as junior year came to a stark close, I came to the sudden realization that I was losing practically all my friends. I had some friends in my grade level but none of which I was excessively close to, mostly because we were simply just too different in many aspects of our lives. So starting out my senior year with people I had barely interacted with since middle school was very interesting. Not only did I keep to myself the majority of the time, but I felt out of place sitting there with that particular group. This all changed when I started interacting more with my old friends in newspaper. I felt the comfort I had felt the previous year, and I honestly couldn’t have been happier being surrounded by people who shared common interests and ideas with me. I didn’t expect to be around these people again, and I didn’t expect them to accept me for who I had become, much less who I was becoming. I saw myself with a different friend group, talking about different things and interacting in different ways.

Moving past who I thought I would be around by my final year, I had this whole idea, no, this whole persona that I thought I would’ve adopted by my senior year that was completely wrong. I saw myself continuing to be quiet and shy, barely expressing myself artistically but rather focusing on more studious things. I’m laughing as I’m writing this because I couldn’t have been more wrong. The irony behind who I thought I was going to be and who I was becoming was uncanny. I’ve become nearly the exact opposite of who I saw myself becoming. This was hard to accept for a while, mostly because the closest people in my life didn’t know how to respond to it, and in a way, couldn’t accept it. Despite that though, I’m happy with who I’ve become and who I’m becoming, and if anything, you should be too.

This ties back to who and what you are and how your whole idea of what you want can cloud who you are becoming. I had this idea in my head that would please my family, friends and, at the time, boyfriend. I thought that if only I could adopt that persona they would be proud of me, they wouldn’t be embarrassed or ashamed to talk about me and say with a smile “Yeah, I know her.” This mindset is what hurt me the most throughout my four years of school. I never realized it, but by trying my best to be something I’m not and could never be I was quelling what I was supposed to be. It’s funny because I talked to a close friend about this, and he said with a small smile on his face “Well, then what’s happening right now is you’re playing catch up, and that’s OK.” It’s one of the most comforting realizations I’ve had thus far, and I don’t regret going through it one bit.

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This is my last set of realizations, and it was the hardest three points I’ve ever had to come up with specifically because of what they are about. What you never see coming is what gets to you, and until you take a step back and look at the big picture you never actually realize certain situations truly mold you. I know that there were situations and circumstances that I went through in high school that I never saw coming, and though they caused me pain at the time, I don’t regret them happening.

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I’ve always had someone to lean on in my life. When I was four years old, it was my mother. I would hold her pointer finger with my small hand and she would guide me to wherever our destination was without fail. As I grew older, I gained a shoulder to rest on that was tan and covered in freckles. She was and is my best friend of nearly twelve years. Riding bikes across a long stretch of neighborhoods, we would laugh obnoxiously as we rode through life without a care in the world. In high school, I got someone tall and thin, his smile lopsided and his shoulder comforting. Only two of these people are still with me, and I didn’t know that would happen. He left recently, and I couldn’t really expect him to stay. I didn’t expect to lose someone so important and central to my life so suddenly, and I didn’t expect the impact it would have on me, both positively and negatively. My point being, is that this will happen and its OK because there are always going to be new people who will come around. You’re never going to be alone, so don’t worry about it.

Hah. So this is actually kind of funny. Well I guess only to me, but whatever. New people have jumped into my life recently, and it has definitely been an experience. I’m not in the best of places at the moment, and if I’m being honest I haven’t been for a while. However I never expected certain people in my life, people that I’ve known for years but that I didn’t think cared, to take the time to comfort and help me when I’ve needed it. I didn’t expect an outstretched hand from them asking if I was OK. Maybe this is common in school and maybe it isn’t, all I can say is that it happened to me, and if it hadn’t I don’t know where I would be.

This is my final point. I hope I can make this abundantly clear to anyone reading this. Don’t fight who you are. It sounds easy, but it is the hardest thing I’ve had to do in these past few years. Accepting what I like, what I don’t like, my interests, my habits, quirks in my personality, my opinions and so on has been nearly impossible. Why? I’ve been worried that if I let that come out, if I let that part of me show then I’ll disappoint everyone around me. I finally understand that this isn’t true. Those who care and those who matter won’t mind in the slightest. So don’t be afraid to be different; don’t be afraid to be who you are. It’s the one thing I’m making sure to take with me as I walk across the stage for graduation. It’s the one thing I’m taking with me as I walk out the glass doors of the school for the last time. I’ve learned so much, beyond just this point, and despite the struggles I’ve been through in the past four years, I wouldn’t change one thing.