High school is an interesting place. In its definition, a cesspool of raging hormonal teenagers just discovering how to function as miniature adults. Most of high school can be looked back on fondly, but many people look back from one of two perspectives — the bully or the bullied. And I suppose "bully" or "bullied" is the wrong word, but at the end of the day, the groups are divided into the "rude" and the "not rude."
If you feel like your high school didn't have this division, good for you. Either most people you went to school with were genuinely nice human beings, or it was small enough for everyone to be close. If this division does sound familiar, however, you're likely in the majority. And it's not necessarily a bad thing. I like to think that I fell into the "not rude" category. I rarely think about high school, and especially the people from it that were not the kindest. But when I do, I'll tell you what I feel — fine. So, my rude high school peers, here are my thoughts for you:
1. I hope you're doing great.
Honestly, i feel no remorse toward you. When I hear you're doing well, I'm glad. When I see you got engaged, I'm happy. When I run into you at CVS, I think you look like you're doing good, and that's good. The only thing I hope for you is that you look back at certain ways you used to act, and feel regret. Enough regret for you to no longer act that way. If you are reading this from the perspective of the high school rude and do not feel anything — that is what makes me sad.
2. I feel like you made me a better person.
Would I consider myself bullied in high school? Absolutely not. Could certain things have been better? Yes. People could've been friendlier, people could've not started rumors, people could just generally have been more altruistic and respectable. But at the end of the day, I am who I am because of you. I know how to handle drama. I know how to be respectable. I know how to shrug things off. I know how to deal with rude people. And yes, I know how to deal with the kind people too — I learned a lot in high school, in and out of the classroom. And some of it was from you.
3. I'm over it.
I can write this and still be over it. I can think about it and still be over it. I can talk about it with my friends and still be over it. Did some things that happened back in the day hurt at the time? Definitely. But at the end of the day, it was just high school. And after high school is the real world, where nice people are the ones people like, and the smart people are your bosses. Life after high school doesn't involve being popular, it doesn't involve "groups" and it certainly doesn't involve any of the petty drama that plagued our halls. It's a beautiful world, one that doesn't feel so divided. One that I feel a part of, and one I rarely do not enjoy.
It allows me to think about the past and reflect on it from a seemingly outside perspective, form opinions on it and grow from it. Which occasionally, I do. And I'm over it.
I'm not happy about everything in high school, but I'm happy with whom it helped me become.
