When it comes to life after high school, some look at those four years and think of the toxic friendships and bitter words, the words said behind your back and the judgements made towards you. They choose to look at those years of their life and pretend they never existed but it won't change the fact that they happened and just how much their life changed in those years. From the moment you walk through those doors your freshman year to the day you walk out of them your senior year, you're a completely different person. You look different, you act different and you carry yourself differently. Face it, the words said, the experiences, the friendships you made or lost, they changed you. You can choose to ignore that they happened but one day you'll appreciate how they helped shape you into the person you are today.
There may have been some point where I felt this way but looking back, I entered High School as an extremely quiet and shy girl who struggled to make friends and was severely struggling with depression to a girl who made friends with everyone and who had a smile on her face and laughed all the time. But while those years in High School changed you, the years after count just as much. Because one you step off that stage at graduation, diploma in hand, suddenly you're much older and the word 'High School' becomes the past. A term you'll only use when your describing what used to be, you find yourself saying 'back in High School' more than you thought you ever would like it was years and years ago. And maybe it was, or maybe it was only one or two years ago. Fact is, when you step off that stage, you do become older.
If you ask me, when you step off that stage, you can either be older and more mature or you can act the same, the choice is up to you. I've seen it go both ways. I've seen my friends work hard towards their goals, you can see that they're more mature just through the way they act and the decisions they make. But I've also seen others act just the same way they did in High School. It's the bitter words they say and frivolous actions they take that tell you they haven't grown. They say High School prepares you for the real world and in some ways it does, but in a lot of ways it doesn't. You see, High School does change you but after it ends, you're either still stuck there mentally or you've moved on. That doesn't mean you can't stay close to your High School friends and look back on those High School years as some of the greatest and worst. It just means each action you take now defines you because its not just those within your High School watching and listening, it's everyone around you. When you walked out those doors and stepped off that stage, so did everyone else. Each action you take and every word you say, it's not just a fellow classmate listening to you, it's most likely someone who's grown and matured. So if you haven't grown like they have, well, it shows.
I realized then, not everyone changes right after High School. Some of us stay there mentally for a while and still act the same as we did. While the rest of us go on and try to be different, to grow and be more mature. We're all taking our paths of life one at a time and some of us go slower than others. That doesn't excuse the bitter words and petty actions we still see but it gives an understanding. None of us are perfect, we all have our flaws and we're all growing in our own separate ways. Just know that after High School, your actions speak a lot louder than they used to, especially to those who knew you in High School.
There's not many words that describe life after High School because it's different for everyone but just know that it counts. It counts far more than you can imagine. Here's to growing, becoming better everyday and taking it all one step at a time.
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