The 5 Lies They Tell You About High School

The Truth

Most people refer to high school as the best four years of their lives. You usually don’t meet anyone who will tell you that high school was the most miserable time of their life, and they’d never relive it because they hated it so much. My mom always said freshman and sophomore year were her toughest years, but when junior and senior year came, she loved it. When she told me her high school experience was the best of her life, she meant that overall the positives outnumbered the negatives. I didn’t learn this until my graduation party and she was doing my hair for the last time. She had curled it and pinned it up in a dark brown bun.

I had apologized if I didn’t fulfill her expectations. I added that I knew the feeling. She said she loved me, and that I would be okay because it’s better to know sooner than later that you’ve messed up badly. She admitted she was hurt I never told her or my father I was struggling because she wanted to be able to help me through it. I told her to explain to me what made her high school experience so great, and she said, “It was horrible. I would never do it again, but see, when you first asked me in seventh grade, I told you I loved it because I was thinking about the positives of my high school experience.”

Then it hit me.

I focused so much on the negatives, so I listed the top five lies about my high school experience instead of the five truths about it. I didn’t think about the few good friends I made, or the classes I did succeed in, or my first kiss, or what it was like to start driving, or more importantly, what it all taught me for the future. You probably want to hear those stories...