In seventh grade, I felt more ennui than I have in my entire life. Every day was a scream of boredom and a deep desire to seek an adventure. I wanted challenges and my mind was still hungry for knowledge. I remember wondering how long the boredom would last and especially pondered on why it was so painfully long. I had nothing to do, except watch YouTube videos, which over time became jaded in quality themselves.
Fast forward five years.
12th grade was an incredibly challenging year for me. I went through toxic friendships, had teachers who said questionable things to me after class, a ton of work from the increased course load I took, and of course the notorious college applications. I could barely keep up and all I wanted was a break from the madness — a long period of doing nothing without consequences. I took the time to think about how the deluge of different responsibilities and burdens pressed down on me and left me nearly given up by the end of senior year.
It was incredibly hard to get through that year but if there's one thing I'm thankful for, it's that it taught me my limits and taught me skills that seem simple but are actually quite hard — skills like saying no and being more assertive.
It feels like life is too still at times. Sometimes, I want it to accelerate and give me something exciting and spicy and other times, I want it to slow down just to give me a place of peace and quiet. It always seems like life never runs abreast of us — at the pace that we run at. And it can be really overwhelming, dare I even say uncontrollable.
And that's okay. Because that's what makes our accomplishments in this mysterious period of reality all the more momentous and incredible.