The Journey So Far/Chapter 2: Year of Adolescence (2009-2011)

I consider 2009 to the year my life truly started to happen. A lot of events from High School and beyond still influence me and affect me. Let's start from the beginning. High School is supposed to be exciting, right? Well, honestly, YES! Those 4 years were some of the best times I have had in my life. I used to think about how all the adults would say, *"These are the best years of your life, enjoy it while it lasts".* I always rolled my eyes and was so ready to graduate and become an adult. If I could go back in time to my younger self, I would slap myself. Well, now that I think about it, I'd slap my past self for many things, but I'm getting ahead of myself. For my freshmen year to my junior year, it went as well as you would have hoped. For one, I returned to my old classmates from Elementary and Middle School. I attended Longmont High School. Most of my class went to this school. It was a weird feeling coming back to my *"school family"* after a year of being away. That didn't mean I automatically became popular. No, I kept my status as *"that geeky kid who isn't a total outcast but still keeps to himself and his friends in the corner at lunch hour".* What I'm trying to say is people treated me a little better in High School than before. It also helped that I did a major change in my look. I went from this ratty clothed, mop head, glasses-wearing, brace face, to a new clean-cut hairstyle, slicker clothes, braces-free teeth, and contacts. It was funny to see people's reaction to my new look. For my first year, I did what any High schooler did, survive until the end. I did my homework, hung out with friends, and started to formulate my plans for becoming a game-designer.

As the year went on, one of my missions was to get a girlfriend. I dated here and there during the year, but nothing came from those. Now, why am I telling you this? Because it will play a big part in my story. One of my friends started dating a girl and they were doing great together. So here I was, feeling like the third wheel and desperately wanting the same thing he had. Luckily, towards the end of the year, I was introduced to this one girl that would change my life, for the better and worse.

For the sake of respect and privacy, we're just going to call her *"my ex".* Just to make it simple. After meeting her for the first time, I asked her out on a date. We became a couple in High School. We would go out on dinner dates, go to the movies, stay at home, and all kinds of warm and fuzzy new relationship stuff. A year went by and she had to move away from Longmont to Milliken. Milliken is a smaller town about 30 minutes away from Longmont. This put a strain on our relationship, but we persevered. I won't go into too much detail about her family. Let's just say, they didn't like me, and I sure as hell didn't like them. Regardless, we would just drive to each other's houses every weekend to see each other. My High School years went by quickly. I enjoyed the years and it felt like everything was going just right. I had a tight, close group of friends, a girlfriends that I was starting to fall in love with, and I was even going to be able to graduate High School early because I had enough credits thanks to an extra class or two. For a time, things were falling into place. My senior year was coming and that meant, what's next after High School? I was not ready for the rest of my life.

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