Dear Middle School You,

I know things are hard right now. I know that school is tough and some of your “best friends” have proven they are NOT your best friends. I know that some days it is a struggle to pull yourself out of bed and put on that sometimes fake smile, and make it through one more day in the rat race of middle school.

I know that right now seems like all there is, and that you cannot imagine anything changing. I know how hard it is when people have let you down, and how silly it sounds when your parents tell you to “hold tight…try to let it go…things will get better soon”, but I can tell you it actually is true and good advice.

Middle School Me was just like you. I had days that I HATED the thought of going through those big school doors. I was fed up with the fact that my best friend dated the girl that he knew I had a crush on FOREVER. To make matters worse he would even ask my advice when they fought! To even top that shock, I gave him great advice to make things work. I was always the “nice guy”. I was angry when I sat the bench my year on A Team football. Nobody wanted to score as much as I did, and if I had just been given the chance I could have helped the team. I went home this past weekend and happened to pick up one of my Middle School yearbooks, and every emotion came flying out at me as I flipped through those pages. Middle School Me always felt like I just didn’t measure up. I wasn’t fast enough, smart enough, good looking enough, or lucky enough.

After I got back to my dorm, I started to think about that again, but from the safe viewpoint of 7 years in the future from Middle School. Why was I so hard on myself then? I can’t help thinking that if I had been as nice to myself as I was when I was helping or thinking of other people, my Middle School years could have been so much less stressful. It’s funny how time really does have a way of healing old wounds…even self-inflicted wounds that were caused by self doubt.

I look back at that time and realize so many good things were happening that I wasn’t looking at. The girl that I had a crush on that my so called best friend dated? She broke his heart in 10^th grade by ditching him an hour before the dance to go with one of his other best friends. College Me sees now that my best friend helped Middle School Me avoid that humiliation. And not thinking I was fast enough back then has been the prompt to increase my speed when running. In my last two half marathons run, I placed first in my age group. So I’m not only fast enough, sometimes I am fastest! My life is great now; I love College, I have a great grade point average (so I really am smart enough), and I was good looking “enough” to attract the best girlfriend I could ever want. And I know I am finally “lucky enough”, because I realize that I don’t need to judge myself as harshly as I did in Middle School, in fact I can look in the mirror and say “You got this…things are all falling into place”. So just know your parents really are right when they say “hold tight…try to let it go…things will get better soon”.