Entry #10
“Until you value yourself, you won't value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it”. “The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values, and Spiritual Growth” (Peck, 2016). Life is full of experiences, every second of everyday is an experience. Some experiences are good, some are bad, but what they have in common is that it will always shape you into a different person than you were. Weather it be simply riding a roller coaster or making that big decision to propose to that special someone, experience are the biggest part of life, which is an experience in itself. My personal experience is both good and bad, bad because certain choices that were made aren't the choices i'm most proud of but good because they shaped me into the person that i am today. You will discover the reasons why I dropped out of school, my decisions to go back to school and continued to college, and how it affected my self concept and self esteem. No matter what you’ve done in your life, good or bad, just always remember that you’re not alone.
I was never good at school but my grades said otherwise. The thing with me was, I didn't mind being at school but getting there was the hardest part. I mean who wants to take a 30 minute bus ride when school feels like it's down the street. I was the girl who did a lot of interpersonal communication competence without realizing it. Meaning, I was able to communicate choosing the right type of communication skill that works best given the situation. I knew how to read people, understand them, like i could read their thoughts and knew what to say and when to say it. I was able to meet all different types of people because of this and it’s the reason why i befriended a very unique group of friends.
They were funky, maybe not in looks but in personality and style. They honestly were great people with bad habits and I managed to get myself into problems.When you’re younger, you’re on the hunt for fun at any means necessary, careless of the consequences. For me, it started simple with having lunch with them but soon lunch wasn't satisfying enough and we started ditching class by hiding in the school restroom. Eventually ditching one class became dull and boring so we began missing whole days. I even soon found myself attracted to one of the girls that i would spend time with and i know there is ALWAYS a girl but to me it wasn't a fairy tale attraction. I would try to impress her listened to music she liked and would wear certain clothes she’d tend to comment on. Due to this attraction, I eventually developed a habit of smoking weed and drinking.
This habit started one day after school, at one of the friends house. When we arrived at their house everyone immediately went to the garage and gathered in a hippy circle, as if it was a ritual. When it came time for me to take my hit from the pipe, I accidently made the rookie mistake and blew out the weed in the pipe and was lucky to find it on the floor. Everyone laughed because of how inexperienced I was. In a matter of seconds the weed was gone and so was I.
“findings challenge commonly held notions that the age-related decrease in drug use disorders is attributable to an increase in persistence, and that the effects of role transitions are stronger during young, compared with middle and older, adulthood” says Vergés and other researchers. This process is called maturing out and that's what i did. It's not that i'm against smoking weed or drinking but after so many times of doing the same thing it gets boring and wasn't the same for me. It wasn't too long before i dropped out of school and ended staying home curled up in bed. I started to hate the world. Since I felt the only communication i had with the world was online, i went in search for a friend. Within that journey, I met a friend who we'll call Jenny. We became the best of friends, she showed me lots of cool stuff and whenever i needed her she was a call away. We were inseparable, she helped me get out of my funky blues i was in but then i met my boyfriend who we’ll casper because that was supposed to be his name until his parents settled on his name, true story.
Jenny didn’t like that. I'm not to sure why she didn't like Casper, but she started to head her own way. She wouldn't text/call me that often and she was out of my life. Although Casper was probably the best thing that happen to me. He set high standards for me and I wasn't going to let him down, at least not yet. Casper inspired me to want to go back to high school, which i succeeded in doing until again dropping out. Some time went by and i finally came to the conclusion that if i wasn't going to graduate from high school, i would go and get my G.E.D. After two months of hard work and determination, i succeeded in obtaining my G.E.D. Obtaining my G.E.D made my heart melt, and i felt as if i had finally done something right for myself. After obtaining my G.E.D, i wanted to go to college. Little did I realize that it was going to be stressful but having anxiety i'm kind of used to it. Once I was “accepted” (I only say this because everyone gets accepted into community college) I was excited and it meant the world to me but then again, i'm easily impressed. I was expecting college to be a walk in the park but it feels like hurricane katrina. However, the feeling of going to college makes me so proud and keeps me busy all the time and i’m enjoying it. I feel like I owe that to myself.
“When I first started making music, I didn't really know what I was doing. I just wanted to write songs. I didn't have a concept. I didn't think it through. I was just flailing around doing what comes naturally. It took me a really long time to step back and deal with what I was doing with any kind of perspective or self-awareness” said Juliana Hatfield. I can relate to this quote because i was doing the same thing but I never realized it. All I wanted to do was something that made me happy and I was looking in the weirdest places but where i found my happiness was in education. Fast forward to today with only a week left of my first semester and i'm really calm about it, well that's what i keep saying to myself. Im slowly getting into the rhythm of who i am and what i want to do with my life. This life experience has brought me to hell and back but college helped form who i want to be and i'm finally excited for the future. I am 18 and ready to show the world what i can really do. Life is busy but i realize life doesn't stop for anyone so i might as well start moving or watch the world around me pass me by.
I think of my life as a garden, and each seed i plant is my life experiences. Regardless of what happens to me in life, i continue to care for it and at the end of it, i'll have an abundance of flowers to leave behind.
