Don’t get me wrong, I loved my high school experience. I had an amazing and loving friend group. My grades were very attractive. The teachers I had were all supportive, understanding, and passionate about the subject they taught. I mean, the lunch food was meh but yet I still crave the obscure and unique brand of spinach wraps Warwick Public Schools supplied for us. I cried all throughout graduation because I wasn’t ready to leave. Now even as a sophomore in college, I frequently say that I miss high school from time to time.

But when I look back at the four years I spent in high school, a flood of memories of me just slaving away over homework at my desk in my room at home is what I mostly see. I was that student who took the maximum number of honors classes and AP classes. There was no time to sleep, there was no time to blink, there was no time for chillaxing—if I wanted to keep up with everything. Back then, it was difficult for me to balance everything. And because of that, I believe I sacrificed a decent amount of my social life.

It’s not like I locked myself up in my room for four years and didn’t see one ray of sunlight. I did go out, but never anything too crazy. There were day trips to the mall and times where my friends and I had lunches and dinners out at a restaurant. There were nights where we went to go see a movie. And of course I went to school events like Drama Club plays, football games, dances, etc. (because I lived and breathed school). But I can’t really recall a time where I went over someone’s house to just hang out and do nothing but kick back and relax while watching TV and eating junk food. I can’t ever remember jumping in a car and randomly driving around and adventuring for no reason. It probably happened, but so seldom that I can’t recall up any concrete memories of it occurring.

Even when I did go out, I would be a bundle of nerves. I would look at the clock and remind myself that every second I’m out is a second I could have been studying. And I remember after a fun day of being out with my friends, I would return back to my desk and hit the books again—even if it was a Saturday night.

When I reminisce about high school, I want to mainly remember all the amazing and wild things I did with my friends; I want to remember how young and free I was. But I can’t. I can’t remember being free. All I can remember is being chained by tests and assignments and taking on an immense amount of challenging courses when maybe I should have dropped some.

I’m not saying that it isn’t a good thing that I was studious and that I was an exceptional student. That’s awesome and that’s something that should be aspired. The point I’m trying to make is that I should have known how to balance my study time and my social time a lot better. There needed to be a balance, not too much of the other. So, if I could go back and change one thing about high school, it’s that I would take more time for myself. Because I didn't and that is my biggest regret. I would take more time to just enjoy being a sixteen or seventeen-year-old, because I’ll never be that young ever again, and I should have lived it up.