when adults tell teenagers that the dull ache of high school is just a survivable mess that they’re making up to be worse than it is, i think of this:
when i was in sophomore year, i was in an accident and the left side of my face was hit. i sat in the emergency room with a clearly broken nose and blood coming out of a laceration on my cheek. and i did my homework. i did my homework with a black eye swelling up, with little red fingerprints on it.
and he told me to redo it. that it wasn’t good enough. the assignment itself was worth maybe five points out of a hundred. he wouldn’t forgive me for it. when i explained about my concussion, he told me to do it somewhere dark.
we don’t make it up. the value of our lives becomes almost nothing at all. the quality of living that is allowed is so low that students learn to apply it to themselves. they are useless, unimportant, a machine to figure out problems without any food, sleep, family time. nothing. we call teenagers moody because something in them breaks a little. we don’t say: they are stressed beyond measure and they believe their own physical health is less important than the quality of the product they’re forced to produce. we don’t say: wouldn’t you be moody too?
If you think high school is this difficult then your in for a rude awakening when you become an adult. Working at a job you hate just to pay the bills even when your sick, finding a place to live, watching your parents age and die, all the while trying to keep your shit together and manage healthy adult relationships. You’ve got it better than you know kid.
I am an adult. The injury I spoke about has made my nose crooked, far enough in my future that it’s only a story, something that doesn’t hurt anymore.
I do know what all of what you said is like. And you’re wrong on so many levels that I don’t even know how to address each “real life is tough so grow up” snide comment that you’ve used here, so instead:
if you’re a teenager, ignore this. Adults don’t want to admit that teenagers are real people, too. That the way that we learn to settle, to think less of ourselves, to demand less, to be the quiet machine of corporate glee: it’s through high school. If I was 17 and I read that the worst is yet to come: I don’t think I would have lived to see the morning sun.
But it gets better, not worse. I have been working since I was 12 (yes, even when I was sick), and let me tell you, it gets easier, the money - slowly - adds up and sometimes I can afford a nice dinner for the both of us. The both of us. Me and the boy I love. He was worth waiting for, working for, putting myself through doctors visits and funerals and everything.
And my friends are worth it. My beautiful, mature friends who support me no matter how stupid I’m being. Those healthy adult relationships are so much easier than high school ones. We just hang out and drink wine and there’s literally no drama at all. They aren’t hard to maintain, cell phones exist and when I’m struggling, they will pick up the call. And the last time someone I loved died: I actually had people to walk me through, unlike high school. And since there’s more therapists for adults than adolescents by a large margin, I’m getting help now, too. My mental illness now doesn’t control everything I do.
You get away from your abusive parents and friends, you get away from teachers who want nothing but a paycheck and a summer vacation. You escape the suicides and the toxic views on cutting, you run from the diet fads and the rumors and the people who want to hurt you. You get out of the place where your best friend died, you find beautiful things you’ve never seen, learn languages, make art, dance, eat new foods, find cool hidden bars. Walk out into the ocean, learn to ride a bull, drink red wine on roofs. The earth is out there waiting. And it’s beautiful.
You get a world that you control, a beautiful place that isn’t always perfect: but it’s yours.
