Hey Chris,
I know some of the stuff I'm gonna say will sound crazy, and hell, it is crazy, but you're about to live it.
You're
about to be heading into grade 8, a year where you're supposed to run
the school, but things won't go as planned. Someone will become very
sick, and you'll be away from school for months at a time, while doctors
try to figure out what's wrong. It will be a very stressful time in
your life. People at school will make vicious rumours about you, and the
bullying will ultimately get physical. You're gonna deal with some
things nobody should have to, but in the end it will make you stronger.
You'll appreciate the people in your life a lot more. You feel blessed
to see them walking around and basically, just being normal; something
you didn't really expect would happen.
Because of all
the troubles at school, you're gonna go to a new school for a fresh
start. Things will seem really great. You're still shy, but you make
some good friends, and you even meet a girl. I won't go into much detail
about her roll in your life, but she'll play a big one all the way
through your high school life, which will eventually be cut short, but
we'll get to that in a second.
Grade 9 will go good for
you, some bumps in the road, but ultimately you feel you have good
friendships, but the problem is you aren't being yourself, mostly
because you don't accept yourself for who you are. You try to conform to
what you believe others want you to be, which in the end will end up
hurting you even more. In grade 10 people are going to distance
themselves from you, and those who you thought were close you'll just
come to realize maybe weren't so close after all.
Through
the summer leading up to Grade 11 you contemplate leaving for another
school, but ultimately stick to the one you're at, and stick with the
"friends" you have. And that's the thing right there, Chris. Instead of
just accepting people for who they are, and having nothing to do with
them, you stay involved anyways, which you will soon find out back
fires.
After a couple weeks of Grade 11, your life will
drastically change. One Monday morning at around 1am you'll be woken up
by a knocking on your front door, it's the police. That girl that you
met, that you knew was trouble but decided to continue associating
yourself with anyways? Well, she told the cops you had been harassing
her apparently, and that you were apparently suicidal based on songs you
had written, that you sent her from months ago. The song writing will
start in Grade 8 and carry all the way up to there.
From
there, you'll end up leaving the school. Rumours will swirl that you
apparently got expelled, or that there was a restraining order, but that
will be the least of your problems.
You'll begin
online high school, and you'll feel happy and confident about it for a
few days after starting it. Then one day you'll tell yourself you need
to take a day off. That day off turns into 2 days off, then 3, then 4,
then a week, month, year, and so on.
See Chris, the
problem is man, you rushed into the online school. Your life just took a
drastic turn, it changed in such a way nobody could ever see coming,
and you quickly jumped into a whole new lifestyle. Take it from me, you
need to take time to think, and learn and grow before getting on with
life. Mourn, and then move on.
Now things start taking a
turn from the worst in that Spring. You begin to get extreme anxiety.
Part of it can be related to having no idea where your life is going,
feeling as if you will never finish high school. This anxiety is going
to riddle you. I don't want to scare you too much, but you need to be
prepared, as it is probably the toughest thing you'll go through. You'll
go to bed at 9, the same time as your mom, just to have her talk to you, and keep you calm as you have panic attacks on a nightly basis.
You'll have to work hard just to fall asleep and keep yourself calm. You
feel as if you can't go anywhere or do anything, because of this
anxiety.
But time will keep moving forward. You'll play
baseball again, and have your best offensive season ever, but fall
short of winning the championship. You'll learn about ITF Futures tennis
tournaments, and suddenly that becomes your big break. You focus
everything on those, believing that you can put the no high school
behind you by simply not needing it. You win, you get $15'000 and become
a pro tennis player. You lose? And well..you won't even let that
thought cross your mind.
The minute you step on the
court for that tournament, you realize you're screwed. You're facing a
25 year old who had played in Challengers before and was a 7 year pro.
You get absolutely destroyed and quickly have to face the reality that
your master plan of avoiding high school wasn't going to happen.
You
move on, you finally find a therapist, and you start spending half the
week of that coming winter with your Grandparents, training for tennis.
You improve, slowly but surely, and for once you feel like life isn't so
bad, but yet, you still have that hole without high school.
Then
all of a sudden you find out about getting your GED. If you get it,
you've completed high school and can go to College. You take the test,
feeling as if you aced it, and come back to finding out you failed the
math portion by 1. You'll feel heart broken, and in so much shock. But
it's gonna help you, because in the long run, when you take and pass
your second chance on the math, suddenly everything is going to come
together.
You will see your graduating certificate, and
you'll feel these overwhelming emotions. Those last 16 months, finally,
have come to a close. Your life is caught up, and in those 60 seconds
after seeing you graduated, you'll feel every emotion that you have ever
felt come rushing over you, with uncontrollable tears as you call your
grand parents to say you passed.
Then here you are now.
You've become quite a good tennis player, and the only worry on your
mind is finding a job, and when the next time you'll be hanging with
your friends. You have your whole life ahead of you, and these 5 years
that separate us, Chris, they're going to make you into the man you are
today.
See Chris, life isn't about what you know, it's
about what you learn. It's about surrounding yourself with good people.
It's about going through the lows just so you can appreciate the highs.
In these next 5 years, you're gonna learn a lot of things. You're
gonna break down a lot, but you have so many people behind you that
care about you and support you.
Try and take something away from every friendship, every
conversation you have with someone. Everyone has a story, try and listen
to theirs.
Cherish every conversation, and every relationship. Those adults
telling you about what they dealt with when they were your age? Listen.
Got a question on your mind about how to deal with something? Ask.
Remember kid, things are gonna get rough. But look at where you
are now, 5 years later, and get excited about where I'll be 5 years from
now.
There will be more tough times ahead, but you can either let things make you bitter or better.
Learn from negatives, improve off positives, and most importantly..JUST LIVE LIFE.
- Chris
