We've all seen it before. After graduating high school, there's always someone who ends up staying close to home, or keeping their high school best friends, or is still dating their high school sweetheart. And we all know our instant thoughts on those people: "They are so stuck in high school. That's so pathetic." And sometimes, it's true. Sometimes a person never outgrows their high school ways, and that shows through the people that they surround themselves with or where they are living. But that's only sometimes. I believe that a person can still appreciate and stay close with the people and things that they grew up with, but grow a ton after high school at the same time.

But before I talk about that, let me tell you about my experience in high school. I am a huge people pleaser, so growing up, I was always the "good kid." I was extremely quiet: up until my sophomore year of high school, you were lucky if you got 3 solid sentences out of my mouth. I was smart, and I worked really hard to do well in school and the other activities that I did. I worked for a long time to be what my school viewed as "perfect." In middle school, I was innocent, I stayed out of drama, and I worked really hard in school, so even though I didn't have a lot of friends, there weren't many people who didn't particularly like me.

But by the time I entered high school, I realized that I had basically mastered the whole 'smart' thing, and I wanted to tackle the next part of being 'perfect.' I wanted to be pretty, and I wanted to be popular. I began to get sucked into the high school culture in a way that I had never been before; I found myself agreeing with people just because they were more 'popular' than I was, dressing in ways that people said looked good on me instead of how I wanted to dress, and trying to be friends with people that I knew really didn't care about me and talked behind my back because I thought that being seen with them would "help my image."

And I am sad to say that it did. I still barely talked, but because I was pretty, I had a popular older sister and I had popular friends, I was viewed as popular, even though I had only had about 2 real friends. Other people looked at me as an example of perfection while I only saw a fake, flawed human being. My insecurities and people pleasing eventually escalated into depression and an eating disorder, and by the end of my sophomore year, I was put into therapy and started seeing a nutritionist.

Then, my life started to completely change. I completely changed the people and environments that surrounded myself with, and I started to view myself in a more positive light. It was, of course, a process, and it still is sometimes, but it dramatically changed my life. I realized that all along, the problem wasn't me, the problem wasn't the kids at my school, or even just my high school in particular. The problem was the social structure of high schools in general.

By now you're probably wondering, what's the point of this story? The point is, the high school environment SUCKS. I couldn't tell you exactly why it's so bad; it could be teenage insecurities, it could be pressure of society, it could be the media, it could be the combination of personalities, or maybe it could be none of that at all. The list could go on forever. But the moral of the story is that high school can be a really toxic environment. I know that I am generalizing a lot here, and I know that what I am saying might not always be true, so feel free to disagree with me if you think I'm wrong. What I'm saying is just what I've seen to be true.

My high school and a lot of the high schools in my area were full of people that treated each other horribly. I don't want to insult anyone here; I don't think it was because there were tons of awful people at those schools or anything. I think that maybe they were insecure, they didn't think what they said or did mattered, or they didn't mean to hurt anyone. I don't know. What I do know is that there was constant gossip, judgement, and comparison of people, especially between the 'popular' kids, the ones who were often viewed consciously and subconsciously as having perfect lives and friend groups. It is a huge contest to see who is the smartest, the best at sports, the funniest, the nicest, or the best looking, and people that don't fit the mold are made to feel inferior. And I don't think that we really see that until we graduate.

So, all of that being said, I still don't think that keeping friends from high school is always a bad thing. Why not? Because there is a huge difference between keeping friends from high school and being stuck in high school. Being stuck in high school means being mentally stuck in the high school environment. It means constantly comparing yourself to unrealistic standards, having "friends" that aren't really your friends, and fighting to get yourself the best image that you can, whatever that means in your eyes. That can happen whether or not you stay friends with the people you knew in high school.

On the other hand, you can grow up while still keeping a lot of the people and things that you cared about growing up without being stuck in high school. If the people from your hometown support you to be the best person you can be, you can maintain healthy relationships with them no matter what changes may come. Not staying in contact doesn't mean that it was a bad relationship, it just means that you were headed in different life directions, and that's okay.

I met some of my closest friends during high school, and currently, I don't see them going anywhere anytime soon. I also made a lot of friends that I made in high school and left in high school. It has been painful, but graduating helped me to see who was there because it was convenient, and who was there because they truly wanted me in their life. Leaving home also helped me to see where I, along with everyone else, am going in my life. Some of the friends that I left in high school really did care about me, and I cared about them, but our lives are heading in radically separate directions. I would like to believe that no matter how far apart we become, we will always want the best for each other.

The biggest factors in any relationship are the two people in it. You are the only thing that can truly determine if you get "stuck in high school" or not, no matter what stage of life you are in. Life is really what you make it to be, and that is something that is relevant no matter how old you are.