Sometimes it is necessary to cry and let your guard down. Sometimes it is even necessary to forget about how you look and have the ugliest cry of your life. Warning number one: this cry will involve a multitude of horrid sounds that can only be compared to a cat with a fugly Kim Kardashian facial expression falling off of a nine story building. Yet other times it is necessary to laugh uncontrollably. It is necessary to grab your stomach, smear away the tears pouring from your eyes, and laugh as if you just saw Mean Girls for the first time. Warning number two: this will not be some beautiful, Blake Lively picturesque laugh that happens as you flip your hair over your shoulder during brunch. It will be a loud, obnoxious sound, perhaps followed by a few or many snorts that will fuel the fire and inevitably lead to more gut-wrenching laughter. These two actions encompass the spectrum of behaviors that represent life.
Normal people hardly go from one behavior to the other in a short span of time, but I don’t particularly recall anyone saying teenagers are normal. Those who did, or attempt to claim that, are aliens who have never experienced what it's like to have raging hormones, acne from hell, or frenemies. To put it simply, being a teenager is really fucking hard. A chunk of your life from the ages of thirteen to nineteen may seem overrated when you are looking at it in the rearview mirrors, but those six years were, and are, an emotional roller coaster from hell.
The thrill-seeking soul inside of you becomes atwitter with life as you ride a roller coaster. Feelings of excitement, nervousness, and amusement awaken the butterflies lying dormant in your stomach until they are fluttering about. Gliding across the rails, hanging upside down, and tackling loop-de-loops leaves you feeling alive and invincible. If only the six year roller coaster teenagers endured left us feeling this way. Instead, you constantly find yourself wishing you could live your life as a hermit who would one day be the subject of a TLC or HBO series. Part of this is due to the pressure. The amount of pressure that a teenager experiences trying to fit the mold of "perfect" is comparable to an obscenely obese man and his entire bowling ball shaped family sitting on his/her chest. Society has crafted an idea that a teenager can go to school, play sports, be student council president, obtain good grades, be social, and still get a full eight hours of sleep a night. NEWSFLASH: THIS PERSON DOES NOT EXIST. (We killed him years ago upon discovering he did all those things. Just kidding. Or am I?) Our own preconceptions are our worst nightmares. We are obsessed with the idea of fitting in, relentless in believing that once we do fit in, everything else will fall into place. We try to shove our larger than life personalities into a box that we place into the back of our closets between our ratty-haired American Girl dolls and logo Aeropostale t-shirts we have long been ashamed of. Few escape this fate, and those who do are usually labeled harshly.
Adding to the stress of the already turbulent roller coaster ride is school: my own personal nightmare and home for ten months a year, five days a week, seven hours a day. The reality of school itself is unrealistic. Teenagers nowadays are repeatedly told to “stand out” and “be different." Well, I don’t know about the rest of the teenage population, but I'm pretty sure “different” is synonymous with someone who is anything but Caucasian, has a 4.0 grade point average, won the noble peace prize, and is currently developing the cure for cancer. Good news for me: I am this person. Well, as long as you take out the “anything but” and leave the Caucasian part of it. Oh, and change the 4.0 to 3.5ish. Plus, a minor alteration of “Noble Peace Prize” to “Superlative for most likely to succeed." Last thing, I promise, just cut out “cure for cancer” and paste “cure for procrastination," which if I’m being honest, is going to solve a hell of a lot more problems. Win, win.
Being a teenager is surviving an impossible time. As a result, I applaud any teenager who gets out of bed in the morning. I commend any teenager who goes to school on any given day. I laud any teenager who refuses to be anyone but themselves. Finally, and most importantly, I relate to any teenager who is just focused on surviving.
