"...Those were the best four years of my life." Since I was a child, I've heard countless people utter this phrase in regards to their high school experience. Never once did I understand how four years of high school could classify as the peak of your happiness. Granted I had several incredible teachers who I will be forever grateful for and I met my best friend there, high school just was not the happiest place for me.

I feel no need to revisit my old school. I do not feel nostalgic on Friday nights, nor do I grow envious when I see "First Day Back" posts on Instagram. I have completely and utterly moved on... and here's why.

To begin, I have found the independence in college that I so desperately sought (and failed to find) in high school. I am totally in charge of the subjects I want to study, where I want to eat, what I wear to class, and everything else you can think of within reason. It is more difficult to succeed as a student without someone looking over your shoulder urging you on like there was in high school, but it makes you grow up. You quickly realize in college that your success as a student is completely up to you -- it's ultimately your fate, not that of the school and ten different staff members. Independence is a fun, satisfying concept if you let it be... but it is wildly limited in high school.

I also did not have the voice then that I do now. Never in my life did I let people walk all over me, but teenagers are [sometimes] horrifying and if they cannot be blatantly cruel in front of you, chances are they'll do it behind your back. But you always find out... and it hurts.

Girls -- a particular groups of girls, actually (hey ladies!) -- spread horrible rumors about my family and I when I was in high school. To this day, I do not understand what target I pinned on my back to deserve that, but it happened. High school is prime time for adolescents to crawl their way to the top of their fake social ladder, and tearing others down is a callous, yet very real, way to achieve this. Luckily, in college there really isn't a social ladder. If your school is anything like mine (huge), there are far too many people and too little time to even consider plotting against one particular person to accomplish your needed validation from others. Teenagers are scary, and high school is full of them.

I was not a cool girl back then... I'm still not. I missed that train at some point in my life. (Cry me a river, am I right?) By no means was I an outcast or did I lack companionship, but you can definitely say that I did my own thing in high school. I do not regret the way I was at all. I stayed to myself, and I still kind of do as a college student. I'm a lot happier now.

Maybe the best years of my life are happening now, maybe they'll happen when I'm married, or maybe even when I'm a grandmother. Only God knows. But all I know is that they positively were not when I was in high school.