If you're anything like me, your life in high school went a little like this: You walk into the school feeling terrified of the winding hallways and the scary-looking seniors. For the first three weeks, you walk with your head down, avoiding eye contact and getting lost in the process. You eventually find your way and blend into the scene, and suddenly, at some point between then and senior year, you find that place where you just click. Whether it was a sport, an artistic organization, or some kind of club, you took all the courage you'd been building up so slowly and you put in towards one giant leap of faith... and it paid off.

Before you know it, you're grinning and having the time of your life and succeeding in everything that you love and have such a passion for and all of a sudden as quick as it came it's. just. gone. Just like that. In the slightest blink of an eye, the thing that once consumed you disappeared like the sweetest grain of sugar in the largest of oceans. Gone.

Genuine tears were shed as you came to terms with this most bitter of departures. The last day of school, you drowned in a sea of hugs and high fives and laughter and smiles, and all you could think of was everything you had lost.

This is what it feels like when, according to others, you peaked in high school.

People like us have a harder time adjusting to college, if we even choose that route. If not, we have a harder time finding a job -- not because we're under qualified, but because we're so choosy about where we want to be. It's hard to find a new place to fit in when you fit in so perfectly elsewhere. It's almost like an inevitable break-up -- everyone saw it coming, but you refused to believe it would actually happen, and when it comes time to find someone (or something) new, it's extremely scary.

Our lives are punctuated by these little tidbits of esoterica, and while we struggle to find a way to somehow fade back into the normal scene, our hearts are aching with longing to be back where we once were. And while the ache isn't always a searing pain in our innermost of hearts, it is always there.

You will never forget the first day you walked into that classroom, thinking "I'm just gonna see what this whole thing is all about..." You will never forget the first big project with that group, whether it be a game or a concert or a contest. You will never forget the first individual success. You will never forget your biggest accomplishment. You will never forget your last day.

And while you're sitting there, trying to deal with all of the emotions that come with leaving it all behind, your peers are moving on and finding their niche and getting jobs and succeeding and you're just doing your best to move on and be confident in your new identity. And then someone has the audacity to say, to your face,

"It's okay if your best years are behind you. You just peaked in high school."

I think the thing that annoys me most about peaking in high school is that everyone in the world thinks that if you peaked in high school, you've got nothing else going for you. That if you peaked in high school, you're gonna be miserable for the rest of your life. That if you peaked in high school, you're just going to sit there on the back burner and watch as the rest of your people shine.

I don't think so.

Peaking in high school is okay, and I don't believe anyone should tell you otherwise. You peaked in high school? Congratulations! I am proud of you for finding something that you loved so passionately. I am proud that you dedicated time to do something that made you happy. I am proud, because to be successful in these organizations, you learned valuable life skills that will help you succeed in the real world.

Oh, but you peaked.

Peaking in high school isn't a thing. Peaking in life isn't a thing, and if you go through life thinking that you have already peaked, you're gonna be miserable. I don't know where this mentality of "I can only be my best once in my life," came from, but it is genuine garbage!

If you don't believe that you can live your best life day in and day out, you are believing the wrong thing, friends! There's no rule that says if you're successful in high school, you aren't allowed to be successful in life.

Oh, but that wouldn't be fair.

Friends, you will get out of life what you put in. It's a give-and-receive kind of world. Give all the hard work you have, and you will receive the fruit of that work. Work like you did when you were in high school, and you will be successful like you were in high school. Work towards the goal you want to see, and keep working at it.

Soon enough, you'll see that peaking doesn't exist, but success after high school does.