“I hated high school. I don’t trust anybody who looks back on the years from 14 to 18 with any enjoyment. If you liked being a teenager, there’s something wrong with you.” ―Stephen King

Something I never understood is how people could look back at their high school years with fondness and declare that those were the glory days, the "best days of their lives." To me, high school was a vacuum that sucked all the energy out of you and left you lost and confused.

Between the ages of 14 and 18, life is in a very tumultuous stage and most of us still struggle with the concept of our identity. High school offers a distorted microcosm of the real world, but with less developed individuals and twisted values. The opinions of others are so carefully considered you begin to believe that yours doesn't matter in the grand scheme of everything, and those who were "successful" were the ones that comfortably fit in with the masses.

I realize I sound completely pessimistic, but my high school experience was mostly negative, save for my senior year. Perhaps it could be just me, or it could be due to the fact that high school manages to construct a sort of mentality that is difficult to shake off once instilled.

This mentality consists of superficial values (ex.: these people are the ones you should be close to or strive to be like, these are the ones you avoid at all costs, and etc.) where we label others in order to create a black and white social structure in a grey world.

Wouldn't it be nice if we can just slap a label on something so complex and multi-layered on people?

Senior year was only great because I made it great. I looked around the halls of my small school and decided that I really could care less about the image and label others (especially people I didn't give a shit about) wanted to place on me. So I started experimenting more, talking to more people, and finally becoming more comfortable in my own skin.

If only it was that easy to shake off that mentality I held for so many years. Some days I regress back to my high school freshman state, convinced everyone hates me and that I would never be worthy of love or recognition. To this day, I couldn't tell you why I thought this or who made it possible for me to believe it with all of my adolescent heart. I can't tell you why I let girls who were never my friends make me believe I could never be pretty or enough.

Letting go of all those insecurities took time and patience, and even though now I might be somewhat of a narcissist, I'd rather love myself too much than go back to hating everything about myself.

I understand this isn't the case for everyone. I know that some of you actually really enjoyed your time in high school, and walked away from your four years with beautiful memories. Congratulations, I'm extremely jealous of you. I wish I had the same experience instead of feeling stifled.

Except the best times of my life are happening right here, right now—in college. I've finally been given the breathing room to thrive in my own way, to be myself in another, a more pragmatic microcosm of the real world.

Sometimes I wonder if I would relive high school with all the knowledge that I have now and if I would've had a better go of it that time around. And I always came back to the same answer: fuck no. High school has shaped me into the person I am today, but if I had to do it all over again, I'd lose my damn mind. At least I can proudly say I didn't peak in high school.