Twenty-Something Year Old Journalist

I am going to make a statement that some of you might find very hard to believe: I was not cool in high school. I didn’t have my first sip of alcohol until I was a freshman in college, my first kiss wasn’t until I was nineteen, and my first soul-crushing situationship happened only in my sophomore year of college. (Yet still haunts me to this day)

Now, that’s not to say that those are the things that make you cool, but I hope it helps paint the picture of the widely insecure, academic-success obsessed, stick up my ass, and number one high jumper in my school’s league, girl that I was in high school. (Had to add the last point just for a little bit of saving grace) 

High school was miserable for me. I had a lot of trouble making friends and was always painfully aware of how people were perceiving me, or how I thought they were perceiving me, and was too shy and insecure to just be myself, if I even knew what that would look like.

I was always so envious of those that went to parties on the weekend, had large friend groups, looked good in bathing suits, actually talked to boys. There were times when I thought I had achieved these people’s friendship, only to be brutally embarrassed by the realization the next year that I was simply the girl who would give them the homework and test answers. 

Through this disenjoy-ment of highschool, there was one thing that kept me going: New York. (I warned you, I am a big fan of Girls) My grandparents used to live in New York, in Manhattan, in Columbus Circle, across from Central Park, where I would visit multiple times a year for as long as I can remember. How could I not have fallen in love? 

The first goal I ever remember having is moving to New York. I loved the fast pace of life, the ability to be surrounded by people and no one giving a damn about you, the ease of transportation, the feeling of ambition and desperation in the air. I had always known that New York is where I was meant to be. 

That’s exactly what got me through high school. I kept an old metro card in my pencil pouch (Yes, the dots are connecting as I’m writing this) to remind myself that high school was temporary, to remind me that New York waits for me, that I would finally get the chance to become the person I always wanted to be, and that I would never have to see these people ever again.

When it came time to apply to colleges, I applied only to schools on the east coast, and coincidently only to schools with very large price tags. (Thank you, Dad!) Despite it being covid and never being able to tour any schools I got into, I decided to go to Fordham University at their Lincoln Center campus, which, unknowingly, was just an avenue behind where my grandparents used to live. 

It may have been a slow start due to covid, but I eventually was able to break out of my shell and become more confident and outgoing. I made friends, I went out, I finally figured out how to dress, I kissed lots of boys, (some of who I definitely should not have) I learned how to speak up, I realized that showing some cleavage can get you far, I overall became more secure in who I am as a person and people around me were able to see that change. I was also more than happy to be 3,000 miles away from my family. 

Flash forward to today, where I am now back home living in California, mere minutes away from my old high school, and feeling like I’m having a high school reunion every time I go out to the local bars. I’ve started to become friends with some of the people I went to highschool with, and while I have grown to really enjoy their company and have a good time with them, I can’t help but be transported back to my high school feelings and insecurities. 

I know the person who I was in high school is not the same person I am now, but the thought that my former peers still remember me as that insecure, quiet person makes me want to revert into that insecure, quiet person who I once was. When I’m able to be brave and remind myself that I am not that girl anymore enough to spark a conversation with them, it comes with ease and laughs and catching up and even the occasional surprise by how much I’ve changed. (For the better— I hope)

Yet despite this, I can’t help shake the thought that they all laugh at me behind my back for thinking I could ever be viewed as an equal. 

That’s just the thing though, I know they’re not, and even if they were, so what? I like who I am as a person. I think I’m funny, and thoughtful, and smart, (don’t ask my brother what words he would describe me as) and while it does still take me some time to warm up to people, I’m secure enough in who I am to know that those who don’t like me are simply just missing out. 

While I still definitely did not enjoy high school, and never in a million years thought I would end up back at home, I’m making the best of it and continuing to try and grow as a person and put my old insecurities at ease. Sure, I still get giddy when I get a text inviting me to go out with a group of people, and I wonder what the reaction of high school me would be if she knew I was playing drinking games with people I went to school with, (and how much she would hate me if she knew who I drunkenly made out with a few weekends ago) but I’m learning that the past is the past and the future is what you make of it. 

I have no intention to stay back home in California forever, and am confident that I will make it back to New York one day, (hopefully with enough money for an in-unit washer and dryer) but at least I can finally fulfill high school me’s dream of being ‘cool.’ Although, yet again, don’t ask my brother if he agrees with that statement.