The Last Three Years (Unedited)

Thinking back on freshman year, its almost hard to remember myself. So much has changed since then. I wore the same dark, baggy clothes everyday, trying to blend into my surroundings. I was afraid to speak and afraid to be noticed. What if someone saw something they thought was ugly? What if they laughed at me? I would’ve been heartbroken and I was too fragile to deal with that pain at the time. I as locked in a tightly wound shell that could’ve been broken with the tiniest of taps by the smallest of feathers. I walked with determination to my classes and kept my head down, hoping no one would notice me in the hallways. I walked the “freshman walk” and sat down wherever there was room. I didn’t mind if I was the last to be picked for partners - in fact I prefered it. My heart beat faster when I had to speak in front of the class and I grew clammy when I stood up to speak. I was a nervous wreck.

Now, I’ve grown much more confident in myself. I can walk through the hallways without worrying about what people will think and I talk to random people. I greet strangers with a smile and a simple “hello”. The old me would have never done that. I’m not afraid to speak to adults anymore and even find myself walking into the administrative office just to say hello. I can raise my hand freely in class without being afraid of judgement from the other students and I can speak in front of small crowds. At the end of sophomore year, I got a job at the White Market and since then, I’ve grown more comfortable talking to strangers. I can solve problems easier and with little notice. I have hundreds of conversations a day with random people that I couldn’t tell you the name of and I’m not afraid to speak to them anymore. My social awkwardness has completely disappeared. For the most part, I feel that I can thank a small few for this change.

I remember walking through the crowded hallways on the first day of school. Now the memory seems somewhat trivial but back then, this moment was monumental. There seemed to be thousands of people marching at me, their eyes fixed in one place as they moved along. They all seemed to effortlessly move through the crowd like it was second nature whereas I felt like my feet were dragging along and tripping on every invisible thing. My backpack caught on everybody around me as I looked around in trepidation, earning scowls and shouts from the people near me. I felt suffocated and even though everyone was nearly the same height as me, it seemed like everyone was two times the size of me. My claustrophobia was kicking in as I was making my way down the small span of hallway. Don’t even get me started on trying to make my way across the crowd! That was nearly impossible. You know how it gets when you say a word so many times that it doesn’t really even seem like a word? Well thats what happened to the word “sorry” to me in the first week! I said that word so many times, even when it wasn’t my fault. I was so afraid that someone would be mad at me.

When I finally made it through the mob of people to the classroom, I thought that I was safe until I tried to find a seat on that first day. Then I would freak out all over again! Where do I sit? If I sit in the front people will think I’m a nerd but if I sit in the back people will think I’m a loner! Are any of my friends in this class? Should I sit with that person? I know that person but do they want me to sit with them? Should I ask them if its okay to sit with them?  All these thoughts and millions more ran through my head on the first day and I panicked about every one of them. I eventually found a seat and stayed there for the rest of the year. This happened eight times for the entire day. It was the most tiring day of my life.

Luckily, some of that social anxiety left after the first day. After I went through the steps and realized that I could survive highschool, I was alright with going back. I wasn’t afraid of being lost anymore and I had met plenty of people that I wanted to start friendships with. I still didn’t really talk to anyone much until the second semester but I did develop relationships. In nearly every class, I had someone that I sat with that I had grown particularly close to. In English, I developed a friendship with this girl named Irene. We never talked outside of school - though I never talked outside of school with any of my friends except for one friend  in particular - but in this one class, we talked quite a bit. We had a assigned seats in this class so I had to make friends with the people around me. I found that this helped me make friends faster. We were always partners in activities and talked in class. One particular memory I have is that we were sitting in class one day while reading The Hobbit as a class. It was a warm day in the fall so the windows were open in the classroom. Sadly, when the windows are open in the fall, bugs tend to come inside and that’s exactly what happened. About four june bugs came in and no one noticed them until they started crawling on Irene and I. They were crawling on our bags, our desks, and one was even on her shoe. We of course freaked out and made our teacher get them.

I also developed closer relationships with teachers, especially my Latin teacher. She was also new that year and was fresh out of grad school. She was really nice and absolutely loved Latin and teaching. I on the other hand loved her. So, I spent time with her after school, helping her clean the classroom or just talking. We even started a Greek club. When Latin Day rolled around, I spent even more time with her. I sent her thank you cards for being a great teacher and was genuinely upset when she decided not to come back the next year because she was having a baby.

By the end of freshman year, I had definitely come out of my shell a little more. I wasn’t afraid to talk to people as much but I was still afraid to put my ideas out there. I didn’t want people to judge me. I was still shy but around certain people, I could be myself - at least a little bit more than normal. My priorities consisted of getting straight A’s and when I didn’t, I freaked out. I had to tell myself that I wasn’t in middle school anymore and that these classes were a little harder. I was in harder classes now that were actually challenging me which was something that I’d been fighting for, for years. I wanted to make more friends but that wasn’t my sole focus.

Sophomore year was a little different. I advanced myself a little more and found myself changing. When I went into my second year of high school, I had a boyfriend - at least a sort-of boyfriend meaning we barely ever talked over the summer but we held hands and went on one date. Neither one of us knew what we were doing but we pretended we did. When he broke up with me, I was devastated. I obviously thought it was something I had done like everybody thinks when they get broken up with. I had been really good friends with him and I was really mad at him for breaking up with me. Honestly though, when I thought about it, I realized that I didn’t really like him that much and we became friends again. At that time, I started talking to another guy. I don’t know when I started liking him exactly but I know it was some time in the beginning of sophomore year.

We had three classes together; periods 6-8 we spent together. In English, we sat right next together; in personal fitness, we talked during our free time; during Chemistry, he sat behind me. In the beginning of the year, I barely ever talked to him but then, for some reason and I don’t remember exactly, why, we started talking and we just didn’t stop. We never talked outside of school. He had a girlfriend and I had a major crush on him. I was still that shy girl though that was terrified to put myself out there. I told some of my friends that I liked him and some said that he was cute and others said I should watch out for him. I listened but of course I was too naive to really listen. I don’t think I fully knew what they meant when they said “watch out for him”.

At the end of the year, though, him and his girlfriend broke up and after getting closer to him all year, I finally got the courage to hold his hand. We were sitting in chemistry one day and the teacher was having us watch a video. The teacher had dozed off like usual and my hand was dangling off to my side. He was rubbing my back like he always did and so I reached behind me to grab his calf to start massaging it like I sometimes did. I accidentally hit his hand though and instead of him just moving his hand away, he slowly grabbed my hand, lacing our fingers together. It was an awkward way to hold hands because he was sitting directly behind me out the desks but I remember the shivers that went through me. Even though it feels like so long ago, I still remember how happy I felt. I looked forward to that class everyday, hoping that he’d rub my back that day or poke my side. I was so shy but with him I opened up a little more. We held hands for a good ten minutes until the credits rolled on the screen and then he pulled his hand back. I put my hand back in my lap and tried to stop the shaking from how happy and nervous I was. I lip hurt from how hard I’d been biting it. I didn’t want anyone to know that I was smiling over this. So I sat through the last few minutes of class then left class with a quick hug from him and rushed off to tell my best friend about everything.

Finally, a few days later, I was brave enough to tell him that I liked him more than just friends. I did it over Facebook because I was still too afraid to do it in person. I remember sitting in my best friend's living room, nearing 10 o’clock at night and I felt like I was going to throw up because of the nerves as I typed in the question. I was so nervous. I told him that I liked him. I couldn’t watch and made my friend watch instead.

“He’s typing,” she said as I sat on the couch in a ball across from her. At that I jumped up, my stomach a mess as I bit my nails. I leaned over her shoulder and leaned in, my nose nearly touching the screen. I was freaking out. My heart was beating so fast. He told me that he like me too but that he was seeing someone else already. I was devastated. I tried not to let my friend see how upset I was so I nodded and shrugged. I typed back that it was okay and got off. I went into the bedroom and cried silently into the blanket. I didn’t want her to know how upset I was but she knew.

Later that summer, I started hanging out with him again when he broke up with his girlfriend. We started flirting again and spending a lot of time together. I thought that everything was going back to normal and the only thought going through my head at the time was maybe this will work out! Maybe this is my chance! After spending the last half of the summer together, summer was coming to an end and I was sure we would start to school year off in a relationship. So I gave him one of the most important things of mine, thinking that it wasn’t that big of deal. I figured we were practically together already anyway. I was wrong about that.

When we talked later, I found out that he didn’t want to be in a relationship. I was hurt to say the least but I tried not to take it to heart. I distanced myself a little bit from him but then we started to see each other again. We texted non-stop and we hung out all the time. I started finding myself thinking about him even more than I had the year before. I was constantly relating everything I did to him. When I got dressed in the morning, I thought: will he like this? When I ate something, I thought: Does he like this? I was constantly texting him and hanging out with him. I wanted to be with him and I couldn’t see that he was just using me. Eventually, we slept together again and I was hurt just as much the second time as I was the first time when I realized he didn’t want anything to do with me.

For some reason, I continued to tell myself that maybe, just maybe next time it would be different. So I continued to spend time with him even though people kept telling me I should be careful. My priorities began to change without me even knowing it. Instead of focusing on my school work, I was focusing more on him. I still managed to keep my grades up but not as great as I could have if I’d put more focus on them. He was my sole focus. He was changing me and not necessarily for the better, especially when my depression kicked in.

Around mid-November, my doctor told me that there was nothing she could do to help me with my migraines. Basically, I thought that they didn’t want to do anything. I kept going to the doctors and getting more medicine but nothing helped; if anything, my migraines just got worse. I tried to keep my head up but it didn’t work. I started to think about suicide and started looking things up on the internet like: what’s the fastest way to die? How many Prozac does it take to overdose? Should I die? I didn’t know what to do anymore and I really didn’t want to be alive anymore. I was in so much pain that it hurt to even think. So one day, he invited me out to smoke weed and I accepted. I didn’t take enough to get high thankfully but sadly that only made me want to try more.

THe next time I tried, I got drunk as well. He had to help me to my cousins help where I was staying and she took care of me. All of my life i had been afraid to do any of these things and told myself and anyone who would listen that I would never do them. Suddenly, here I was doing them. I didn’t like it - no I hated it. He told me that he’d take care of me and make sure nothing happened and he didn’t break that promise but I still didn’t like it. I felt disgusting the next day. The only reason I did it was because he kept pushing me and telling me it’d be fun. I listened to him and even though some of my friends told me not to go, I still went. I snuck around and went.

A little while later, I had a really bad day. My dad had told me I was a failure and always would be. My day had started out wonderfully and I had been holding back tears all day. So, when he offered me a hit, I went along with it. That was a bad idea, especially since we were in the car and he started driving. I came to when we were driving down the road. I’d told him about how my grandfather had died in a drinking and driving accident and how I never wanted to ever get in a car with someone who was intoxicated. It scared me and I told him to let me out. He luckily pulled over and I called my cousin. That’s when I realized that I might not be able to completely trust him and that he was changing too.

I began to distance myself from him and only saw him in school. I started spending time with a different guy. I got really close to this guy. When I started talking about this new guy to the old guy, the old guy got jealous and slightly possessive. He knew just how to get to me and said things like  “I thought we had something” and “don’t you like me.” I ended things with the new guy and then the old guy ditched me and went after one of my friends. I realized then that I didn’t want anything to do with him. I didn’t need him in my life. He wasn’t the same person and didn’t care about me anymore.

When I think back on these past three years, I can honestly say that I have learned that one of the most important lessons I’ve learned is that I am important. Growing up with an abusive alcoholic in the family, I trained myself to be quite, small, and unimportant. These qualities were ingrained into me throughout my entire life and I couldn’t get them out of my head - I was conditioned. No matter how much I tried, whenever I was having a bad day, I always reverted to those feelings of being unimportant. Naturally, as I progressed to high school, these feelings stayed with me. I found myself acting like I didn’t matter so when someone treated me like I did matter, I took it to heart. I allowed myself on too many occasions to be enraptured by that feeling. I couldn’t think past those feelings. Now that I’ve been through this experience and have someone hurt me at this level, I can see that I have to put myself first to some level. I can’t always think about other people. When I find myself being completely encompassed with others, I need to pull back.

My priorities have also changed. Now, I’m not completely focused on getting the perfect grades. I do focus on doing well in school but I’m not obsessive over getting the perfect 4.0 GPA. I know that there are things I need to work on and things that I am well at. I’ll always be able to improve myself no matter how well off I am. I don’t want to be one of those people who gets too cocky and thinks they’re perfect with nothing to change. I know I’m not perfect and I know I have many, many flaws. I also know that I wouldn’t be me without those flaws. Before, I was focused on fixing every single flaw so that I wouldn’t stick out so much. Now, I don’t worry about it as much. I don’t freak out every time I say something wrong or stutter in front of a group of people, I just laugh it off and roll my eyes. It’s easier that way. I also found that I have a higher priority of having good friends. I don’t care so much about being popular or having the right friends - I just want to better the relationships that I already have. Much has changed in the past three years, some for the better and some for the worst but mostly for the best.