What is High School?

Chapter Twenty Four: What Is High School?

The title of this book wasn't just a quippy, memorable title. It was a real question, what is high school? That depends on the person. Some people have an amazing time. Then there are people like me.

Depression, anxiety, love, heartbreak, losing friends and making them. Falling in and out of love.

What is high school?

High School is an endless fire pit that swallows you up and gives you third-degree burns as you fall down into it. High school is the place that scrapes your knees to the bone when you find the energy to climb back out of it. High school was better than jr high for me, but it still wasn't a paradise.

I'm glad I left high school because while the monsters I was expecting weren't there, there were still monsters. There were monsters that burrowed inside me and ate me from within.

There were monsters who attacked me from outside.

I've had friendships destroyed, and built new ones. I've had my best friend die. I've had people stab me in the back.

I fell in love and was heartbroken.

I was pushed over the edge. I did drugs and rebuilt myself.

I've gotten hurt and hurt other people.

High school changed me, it didn't leave some infamous mark that would turn me into some loving individual. It scarred me. It took my innocence and screwed me. I don't want anyone to look at high school through rose-colored glasses. This is the reality. What is high school?

It's an awful place that youth goes to die. It brings up the worst memories and forces them down your throat. It is a battlefield where you have to relentlessly dig, to find good and trusting friends. Even then, they still aren't that great.

Sometimes I wish I could redo high school, with the knowledge I know now. But I can't do that. Now I'm stuck with the consequences of my actions haunting me.

I was expelled and now I have "drug dealing black kid" stamped on my forehead. I went in with a whole heart, now I have a scar slashed across it.

I will never forget my high school years because they are branded into my mind. I don't know, maybe when it's over it will all seem like this nightmare.
I want to end this book here because I'm graduating early and I think it's really time for this to come to an end. Just like it's time for high school to come to an end.

What is high school?

High school is a place where people go to burn. High school is where people die. Where people fall in love and get heartbroken.

High school is a place where no one wants to return.

High school is something where, once you leave, it feels like a blur. Feels like just a nightmare.

High school is a prison...and I've finally, finally, been released.

I may have escaped high school, but I haven't escaped life. There's much more work to be done, for me to get to where I want to be. High school was just a stepping stone, and I've taken a huge leap.

I'm done.

I'm fucking done.

Finally...