Sometimes we forget how important our health is. I do, at least. I mean, I'm an ambitious seventeen year old girl constantly running on all four cylinders, trying to be successful in my classes, my clubs, my sports, my part-time job, and trying to make time to spend with my beloved friends and family. I kind of place health at the bottom of my To Do List. The way I see it, if it can't be put on my resume, it decreases further and further down in importance. That's pretty terrible, right? I've never been drastically sick, so I've never realized the importance of keeping myself healthy. I'm a huge athlete. I love working out, especially running, and sometimes I'm exercising three full sessions a day. Obviously, I'm getting a full thirty minutes a day, usually quadruple that, but that's only one small fraction of what it means to take care of your body.

The problem with me is I push and I push and I push. I let myself skip breakfast because I would rather study, and then I opt to eat a candy bar in study hall to relieve my hunger. If I don't like whats for school lunch, I will just double up on chips instead. I will lose two hours of much-needed sleep for the sake of early-morning weight-lifting or staying up to go the extra mile on an assignment. I pretty much sound like I'm both my best friend and my worst enemy. And I am. Some decisions I make are good for my body, but others are detrimentally bad and really end up hurting me, even if they are well intended or accidental.

As a whole, I don't think that teenagers really understand the importance of taking care of their bodies. Health should always come first. Here is my list of priorities: School, friends and family, sports, work, and everything else. Not once would I have thought to include health, physical or mental, until now. Until I got sicker than I ever have been in the past. On Friday, I woke up sicker than I have ever been in my entire life. Today is going on day six of me being sick, and after countless tests and having blood drawn, no disease has been ruled out yet. I always think, "not me." People always tell me that I work so hard and am so busy that I'm going to burn myself out. I always shrug it off. I almost never get sick, so I figured, I never will. I think I considered myself immune to becoming sick because I figure if I've come this far grinding without taking a break, why would I need one now?

Well, I did need one. Everyone needs one. There is actually nothing wrong with taking a break every once in a while. It shouldn't even be 'once in a while,' it should be a regular thing. We all need rest. We need food in our bodies and we need breakfast, the most important meal of the day, even when our teenager selves are already running late to school and hardly have time to start our cars. We need to make the time. We especially need time for ourselves. Especially in this day and age where a lot of us are running ragged trying to please everyone: Our families, our employers, our schools, our teachers our coaches, the colleges we hope to get accepted into.

This is just a little reminder. Take care of yourself. Getting this sick reminded me that I work so hard that I sometimes forget that without being healthy and energetic, I cannot be successful. If I'm not healthy, I can't accomplish anything at all. So, please, teenagers all over the world, please do yourself a huge favor and start prioritizing your health.