Dear 9th grade me,

I know the high school is a big place. Yes, you will get lost sometimes, but eventually you will figure it out. This building will soon become your second home. With all of the activities you will find yourself apart of from Marching Band to Choir to Student Government Association, you'll be spending most of your time here rather than at home.

The teachers, I promise you, they care. You earn your grades, but sometimes they will give you an extra boost with a couple of points. They enjoy sharing their lives with you. Sometimes you'll get lucky to get a teacher who loves to talk. They will be the class that you'll never get anything done because they are sharing funny stories from their life outside of school.

Don't take a foreign language until 11th grade because you'll need to remember it when you graduate. Be friends with the "misfits." They are more accepting than anyone else in the building. Never sit alone in the cafeteria unless you have legitimate reason why. There are plenty of people to sit with and a lonely lunch is never fun.

Homecoming week is the best because you get to dress up like a baby, wear your pajamas to school and carry a blanket. When it comes to which class has the most school spirit, you dress up and be apart of it all every single year. These will be the memories everyone talks about you wanting to go back to after high school is over.

Go to the football games, every single one, even if you don't understand what's going on.

Now that I'm an adult, I realized how much I reference back to my high school years. Those were the best and the worst times of my life. Even though I don't hardly speak to anyone I knew from high school, I will still carry these memories with me.

Enjoy high school and don't stress over it. There's more important things that come later in life that are worth stressing over.

I promise you, even though you feel small right now, by the time you are a 12th grader you will feel as if you can do anything because the teachers that you thought were insignificant in your life made all the difference.

Best Regards,

The you that you become. :)

P.S. It gets better. You'll be okay.