Adolescence was football fridays. It was purple, silver and black spirit all over my clothes and accessories. It was insisting that my best friend and boyfriend would be on either side of me in the stands. It was: "Go! Fight! Wiiiin Jaguars! Let's. Go. Zumwalt Jags!"
Adolescence was being a good student, having a new found obsession for French and, as always, loving art the most. It was being friendly and talkative, but not as outgoing as I would become. It was the few years before I discovered my confidence and my need to be involved.
Adolescence was discovering myself, joining organizations and having new experiences. It was Student Council, newspaper, yearbook and Senior Class officer. It was powder puff and TP'ing the juniors. It was losing yourself to the music, dancing and socializing of Homecoming, Coronation and Prom.
Adolescence was exploring Europe in the summer with my mom as a chaperone. It was falling in love with Italy and being in a dream in Paris. It was having an experience that brings a mother and daughter closer.
Adolescence was finding out what a "serious" relationship is and all the choices that come along with it. It was peer pressure and "everyone's doing it." It was making mistakes too young, but growing from them.
Adolescence was loving me, but hating my body. It was a mess of emotions, breakups, heartaches, new relationships, drama with friends, adventures with friends, driving, cell phones, first jobs and thinking about college. It was setting my goals and determining to stick to them, no matter who told me I couldn't.
Adolescence was what I thought would be the best years of my life, but then I grew out of adolescence and discovered there were better years to have. It was, however, years of memories, learning and growing.
Adolescence is such an interesting time for everyone. I think almost everyone can look back at their teenage years and cringe a bit, but our experiences are all so different for everyone. It is so crazy to me that we were geographically only a few hours away but our experiences as adolescents were so different. Culturally, it seems like we had two different worlds even though now there are so many similarities in our lives. I'm going to contradict myself a bit though and identify with some of the emotional roller coasters you went on as an adolescent. The thing I think we all need to take away from adolescence is that in the moment, everything can make sense and be confusing all at the same time. You can feel lost so easily at that age and looking back now everything makes so much sense and is connected to where we are today.
ReplyDeleteThese are both beautiful reflections ladies! I think its important that we never lose sight of how it felt to be that age - or whatever age you end up teaching. Katie, I think you hit the nail on the head when you said (I'm paraphrasing here) that we can look back on it and it all make sense now. I think that too often we, as the uber-mature adults we pretend to be, look at student situations and easily perscribe - "hey, this is just a phase, everything will be okay, trust me" (or some similar advice). Because we've made it out of that time (alive!) we feel qualified to disperse such sentiments, but despite our best intentions it seems like personal experience is really truly the only teacher. I truthfully believe that students appreciate the advice/perspective even if they don't heed it, and will silently thank you when that "aha!" moment comes along later!
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