If you’ve ever struggled with keeping up in school, you’re not alone. If you started off on the wrong route during your first few years of high school, you are also not alone. At the start of my junior year, I realized I had to get my life together. I regret not realizing it sooner. I went from being a lost teenage girl who didn’t know what she was capable of, to a working young adult who now knows others need to know there is time to fix it, there is still hope for them, too.
Freshman year, I lost friends, got caught up in the wrong groups, and thought it was okay to skip class. Skipping class and getting behind on schoolwork put a lot of stress onto me and I regretted how much I let myself down. Sophomore year, I still had some of my friends but then again, joined another friend group and they were not good for me. I was also in a relationship that I cared more about than school. School should always be a priority before anything else, even working. I got in a lot of trouble by my parents for everything I was doing, and I was mad at my parents for trying to protect me, but at the end of the day they wanted me to have a better future instead of going down the wrong path.
It’s okay to make mistakes, everyone still makes them. You just have to learn from those mistakes and realize growing up is a huge part of life. Adults still make mistakes from time to time.
Another thing I really struggled with, and still sometimes do, is my mental health. Mental health is a huge barrier when it comes to school and a job. If there are ever times that you just need a break from what is going on around you, you can always do the things that you know calms you down and makes you feel relaxed. You should also know that you truly are never alone with mental health because many people around you also struggle and they know how it feels, too.
Now, as a junior in high school, I don’t have many friends, but I do have a future. Some days I miss when I had those old friends and didn’t have a care in the world, but at the end of the day I think about what is best for me. Not every day is sunshine and rainbows, but there are better days to come. I went from skipping class, failing classes, wrong friend groups, a relationship, losing friends, pet loss, grief, and depression to finally accepting doing schoolwork, getting my degree, passing classes, single life, working a part time job, and spending time with family.