Sometimes I can still see her, sitting there, eating her peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the school hallway and hoping that no one saw how alone she was. She had friends, a few at least. Some had been accepted into the school’s honor society, meant to celebrate and encourage those especially bright scholars with the highest grades. And some of her friends had been asked to spend their lunches mentoring younger students who needed some extra help. Both worthy causes, both lunchtime activities, both things she hadn’t been asked to do.
It wasn’t really that bad. She had decent grades, and she helped others in her own way, but when you go to school with the best and brightest, you have to be at the top of your game, or you are left behind. Most days she deserved a participation trophy for getting herself out of bed, making the honor roll was not high on her list.
If she wasn’t sitting in the hallway, her back against the cold metal lockers, she was in the bathroom. Hiding herself in the stall to eat lunch may have seemed gross or silly, but no one knows you are alone if they can’t see you.
Maybe she should have branched out more, gone up to a new group in the lunch room and introduced herself. Maybe she should have befriended the janitor or a lonely teacher, and spent her lunches getting to know someone of a different age and life experience. But maybe life felt a little too overwhelming; her failures, a little to glaring, and her anxiety, a little too big, to imagine putting herself out there like that.
When you are 16 and in high school, you can’t imagine a world outside of your current best friend, the fight you had with your Mom last night and who is going to be the prom queen. When I look back at myself in high school, I can still remember the pain and heartache that came with growing up and discovering who I was. In a world that based your value on your SAT score, I was always going to lose.
Sometimes I wish I could go back to that time, and walk right up to that lonely girl sitting all alone in the hallway trying so desperately to believe that she was worth something. I would sit next to her, and tell her about all the wonderful things she is going to do someday.
I would tell her that after she graduated high school she would earn a scholarship to do what she was most passionate about. I would tell her that though she left that school the next year, her spirit was stronger then ever. I would tell her that she spent the next year working so incredibly hard and she earned one of the nation’s most sought after internships and spent a year building a life for herself far away from everything she had ever known. I would tell her that she had the courage to leave everything behind to escape a damaging relationship. I would tell her that after finding a new job, community and school, she is flourishing. I would tell her that last week she received a letter in the mail asking her to become a member of her college’s honor society as people do when they are top 15 percent of their class. I would tell her that although life felt hard then, and the future wasn’t always bright, she never gave up. And no grades or awards or community service can compare to knowing that you can walk through fire and come out stronger on the other side.
To that girl and to any high schooler who believes that they are never going to amount to anything, let me say this. You are worth far more than any test score, or GPA. You can be kind and loving to others whether you are part of an organization or not. You have a purpose and a gift that the world needs. You are special in a million different ways, and though can’t see it right now, I promise you, if you just stick with it, someday you will see how needed you are. Work hard, and keep good people around you, and I promise you good things will happen. It doesn’t mean that life will be easy, but darling, it will be worth every tear and lunch spent alone. Don’t ever let the world turn you into someone you are not, fight with every breath to show the world who you are.
