A year ago, I finally wrote an article that sat in my brain for months on end called it “We are all confused.” The idea came to me during one of my many many routine rants to my friends about my life because what else was there to talk about at the end of quarantine junior year? I was going on and on about how I just didn’t believe that I was the only person my age stressed about my post high school plans, and then it dawned on me that I couldn’t be!
If you’re new to this story, I’m gonna quickly catch you up before I report my update on this situation. I started asking around to see if other people my age were feeling just as confused about their lives as I was, and I quickly realized that most people my age had absolutely no clue how they wanted their life to look like in about five years. I felt soooo relieved because… same lol. It was amazing to know that I wasn’t the only person who just felt lost, so I wanted to let you guys know that however you feel about whatever you’re going through, you’re not alone! I can guarantee you that there’s someone out there in your network who’s going through whatever you’re going through too, so reach out and lean on each other!
Fast forward to summer ‘21 aka the summer before my final year of high school: it was finally time to buckle down, figure out how I wanted my life to look, and make a plan for how I was going to achieve those large goals that I set for myself. I spent the summer talking to mentors, researching different schools, and watching those college decision videos on YouTube because I just knew that they were going to help with something. Then as the school year started, I began applying for college, which was such an emotional rollercoaster in itself (ifykyk), and with this emotional rollercoaster came the inevitable self doubt of whether or not I even got into all of the lovely schools I applied to (spoiler alert: I did end up getting into 6/10!!!). As I was going through this extreme and strenuous process, I made sure to lean on my friends for support and be the support they needed because we all knew what it felt like to be in one another's shoes.
Fast forward again to the end of senior year: after we’ve all decided what our secondary paths will be and finished stressing about how we’ll get there for the most part, I did some of my own personal reflecting on what these past two years have been for me. I always thought that I was some young super confused teenager who knew absolutely nothing, and that just wasn’t the case. In all actuality, what I coined as ‘confusion’ was actually ‘learning and growing’. I felt so confused because I’ve never been a teenager trying to navigate life before, so naturally, thinking about my future felt unnatural to me. If I had all of the ingredients to this recipe that is life, then I would never truly enjoy the learning and growing that accompany fixing the mistakes that are to surely be made over the course of it.
As I turn in my place as an Eagle for my spot as a Wolverine (#goblue!), I'm grateful to know that the confusion I once felt wasn’t confusion. It was actually me taking my first steps into young adulthood.
The next time you’re being hard on yourself because you feel like you should have plans for your life post-high school, and you just don’t or you’re just feeling down about yourself in general, please remember that you’re not supposed to know everything right now! There’s absolutely nothing wrong with not knowing or being in the process of figuring things out! You’re supposed to be learning and growing into yourself!
The next time you’re being hard on yourself because you feel like you should have plans for your life post-high school, and you just don’t or you’re just feeling down about yourself in general, please remember that you’re not supposed to know everything right now! There’s absolutely nothing wrong with not knowing or being in the process of figuring things out! You’re supposed to be learning and growing into yourself!
I usually end with a cute note and a “talk to you later <3”, but since this is the very last BALM article of my high school career (oh how the time has passed), I’m actually not sure that we’ll talk later in a space like this. So if this is it, I want to give a hugeeeee thank you to the people who’ve tuned into anything that I’ve ever written! Thank you for accepting all of the articles that I randomly decided to write with open arms. I never really thought people would be interested in reading my articles, but y’all were, and I’m so appreciative of that! And a humongous thank you to the BALM and all of the people who make it their duty to make sure this space runs monthly! You rock! <3
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Until we cross paths again, Kyla Lee <33 |
KYLA LEE
