No one ever thinks that high school will actually have those popular mean girls you see in all the movies. The mean girls that bully you and make your life at your school hell while everyone still somehow worships them. And it may not be as bad as it is in the movies, but high school definitely has plenty of popular mean girls.

I had to deal with some pretty passive aggressively mean girls during my high school years. I lost a lot of my friends in the popular group very quickly once I stopped being friends with one girl in the group. At the time, their dirty looks, not-so-subtle giggles to indicate they were talking about me, and the plans I was purposely not included in really hurt me. I wanted nothing more than to be in the popular group, surrounded by popular girls that everyone aspired to be like, or just friends with. I wanted everyone to think, "Wow, she has so many friends!".

I wanted to be the girl that was NEVER seen eating lunch by herself or doing anything by herself. I wanted to be the girl that all the boys, no matter what grade, sought after.

But guess what?

POPULARITY IS TOTAL BS.

And boy am I glad I've learned that now. Because where all those super popular girls now? We don't know because they aren't so popular anymore. None of those girls were real friends to each other so it didn't take long for those friendship groups to dissolve.

So, to those mean girls I had to deal with in high school:

Thank you for teaching me what real friendship is. You aren't better than me purely because you have more friends because most of those friends aren't even trustworthy and don't really care about you the way friends should. I found a select few friends that actually cared about me, went out of their way to talk to me and hang out with me and made me feel truly worth something. I never had to worry about whether or not my friends were talking badly about me behind my back (which most of the girls in the popular groups did religiously) and I never feared my acceptance. My friends loved me for who I was without having to conform to high school norms.

Thank you for building me a much tougher skin. I was so sensitive in high school, so I let every little thing get to me. It was truly exhausting to get worked up over everything someone said or did to me. Thanks to the mean girls, I learned to raise my head, pull back my shoulders and let it all roll off my back. I'm not so sensitive anymore and I've even learned to laugh it off and go about my day,

Thank you for teaching me the importance of kindness. Knowing how bad it hurt me when I was treated badly made it that much harder to treat others badly. Even the smallest act of kindness could truly make the biggest difference and as the saying goes "Honey attracts more bees than vinegar". Don't be a bully because your actions will always have consequences.

Thank you for teaching me how to be myself. I used to try too hard to be the typical blonde, popular girl. It didn't suit me. I wanted to hide the fact that I was smart, that I loved to read, and anything else that makes me who I really am, but I was afraid wouldn't be approved of. I only showed the sides of me that someone would want to see instead of just allowing myself to BE MYSELF. Life is a lot more fun when you're you.