December 19, 2020
Tags: Teenagers, World, Schools

Today, as I write my first story from bed, I’m waiting for something else. The world has been flipping upside-down for the past year. Everything I though I knew, has been wrong or questioned or contradicted. I thought I knew how the world worked. This year has shown me all the ways I don’t.

I’m a high school senior this year. I live in Texas and got to go back to in person school, only after struggling trying to be homeschooled for over half of the first semester. I skipped my junior year to get a head-start on college. I didn't skip my junior year because I’m exceptionally smart, I just took extra classes my sophomore year and this year. I truly thought I wasn’t going to be able to graduate this year due to my switching from homeschooling to in person school when we moved to a different city, but thank god I can.

School used to be fun. I was learning things everyday, I didn’t question what I was taught, and I had tons of friends to laugh and joke with all day. We had nap time and coloring. We had fun just being kids. I noticed a shift when I started seventh grade. Things started to matter more, yet make sense even less. I would be learning history and going to look it up later for homework. I would notice how much worse it was than what they told us. They sugar coated history, made us learn math that almost none of us will use again, they started caring less about how students felt, and they teach us everyday that our mental health comes second to our grades. I think it’s all bullshit. But I can’t really do much about it. students come into school and live in fear.

I’ll elaborate on that last sentence, we go to school everyday with the thought in the back of our heads. “Will today be the day I die?” School shootings are so normalized, as if it happens this often anywhere else. They aren’t. I’m gonna say this thought I have had, but please remember it’s just how I feel. I think we can always prevent students from feeling like shooting up a school. I thought about this while watching Criminal Minds last night. They were handling a case where a boy set up a bomb to kill his girlfriend’s abusive father, shot the guy who raped her, and then shot the guys who leaked a very embarrassing video of him. This kid was exeptionally smart, yet couldn’t show it due to learning disabilities that went unnoticed for years. When he brought the video to the administration, they told him that dealing with bullies is a normal part of growing up. I know we like to pretend that it’s fiction. But this boy didn’t. have a chance and you can almost see where he’s coming from. If you pay more attention to kids and listen to what they have to say, it could quite possibly prevent another tragedy that we have to “send prayers” for. We can’t keep acting like this way of schooling is doing anyone any good. We are teenagers being sent into the cruel world without any knowledge of how to live.

I don’t know everything. I’m just writing out my thoughts. I’m just 16 so I obviously have the same issues most teenagers do. I go out on weekends and hang out with my friends. I have boy troubles (and girl troubles). I actually just started the “talking stage” with someone new. I have a job. I got my first job at 14, babysitting. Then at 15, I started working fast food. To help my parents out. At 16 I got my car. A beautiful blue mustang. My parents helped me out but I make payments, pay for gas and try to pay for anything that goes wrong with it. I have never seen the ocean. I live in the ugliest part of Texas there is. I struggle with anxiety and depression, due to my birth control that helps my cramps and back pain, as well as acne. I’m a teenager. That’s all I am. I try to be the best person I can be, the trust version of myself. I try to make life fun before it gets serious. There’s just a lot of things that I don’t know. A lot of things I would change if I could, but have no idea where to start. I want to see the world become a better place for the off chance I have kids. I don’t want my daughter to live in fear of being taken and raped. Or drugged at a party. I don’t want other people’s sons to be scared of the cops. I hope things change.