Stifle of High School

In my sophomore year of high school, I had really bad senioritis. And I felt ready to graduate; I felt beyond high school. I had truly challenged myself enough by this point.

Junior year I continued feeling this way but I think I really enjoyed junior year of high school. My classes didn't feel as hard as sophomore year in a way; I was having fun, I loved my friends in high school, I had this one friend still here before she had the audacity to move away that summer. Sophomore year was really fun too. I grew a lot as a person throughout all of high school, like enormously and crazily, but even in middle school actually; but of all years, especially sophomore and especially JUNIOR year (and senior year).

I was just having fun in junior year, diddle daddling, and the idea of university was SO exciting to me (knowing this, you should be able to imagine my disappointment when I was having troubles with my university dreams (read: a lot of my other blog posts)). I loved all the college stuff we did in AP Lang.

I remember junior year of high school, I was living vicariously through my friend. She was a senior, and I remember how excited I felt for her as she was applying to universities, and thinking about her life, majors, and places to go. It felt so exciting, like anything could happen and so many places life could take you!! I would constantly ask her throughout the year and be so excited and happy hearing updates.

And my senior year of high school, it was the same as I got to hear about her freshman year of college.

Though if sophomore year I felt so ready to graduate, junior year I was just annoyed and by senior year I was sick of it. I was enjoying my classes less and less.

But what I really hated in high school besides senioritis and feeling like I didn't fit in, is this certain stifle of high school I felt.

The stifle can be described by when:

• High school teachers view you as a child, and you cannot get out of view or box. It feels like a trap, because you don't necessarily view yourself as a child anymore and feel mature, but you're still put into this inevitable box, and knowing that others view you that way is really annoying and suffocating. And you can't even get out of it, you're stuck. You have to go to high school for four years.

  • It's similar to how I feel being at this university now for four years, except there's some key differences because I'm actually viewed as an adult now (a weird adjustment, but I do feel like one).

    • It's just weird now knowing I actually get viewed that way now, like other people agree.

    • That's why I think the transition from high school to university isn't really all that great. You go from child > adult real fast. Thrown into it.

    • And I know you could say "just don't care what others think. just think differently. just care what you think of you; if you think you're mature, etc." But nah it's just high school is literally this BOX.

• I think it's inevitable awkwardness of high school, because each year you grow so much in every way, that comparing a sophomore to freshman, junior to sophomore, senior to junior, all feels funny. But especially imagine senior to freshman. That's straight up like an adult to a child in levels of maturity and growth.

There's something a little romantic to me about high school years and reminiscing about my high school years in general. Of course there were so many times I felt like I truly hated it and wanted to get out of there, and for good reason^, but it was never a clear relationship. Of course there were things I would miss, and I knew that even at the time. Or maybe not miss, but have some sort of nostalgia/reminiscence about.

A part of me misses a little the person I was back then, because I feel like somehow, I was going through so much and was more poetic, but at the same time I'm like ew I have learned so much since then that I wouldn't want to be that person again. And that's totally true too. I think perhaps I might write more about this in a different blog post.