Oh, high school. If you’re like me, you probably think of those four years and cringe, remembering various blunders, be it that one shirt you wore to Picture Day in ninth grade or what you said after your first serious breakup.
Bad outfits aside, when I think of high school, I think of all the things that I didn’t learn, not the things that I remember. Looking back now, I remember poring over Seventeen magazines, looking for the answers to life as I knew it. Much to my 16-year-old self’s chagrin, I know those answers four years too late, but as they say: better late than never.
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The first thing that I wish I knew in high school is that my self-worth does not come from a guy, or my sexual history.
I remember being giddy and confused after my first official makeout. I worried that my reputation was going to be tarnished if anyone ever found out that my boyfriend had gotten to any base with me, especially after hearing other girls gossip and shame a girl who went “too far” on her first date. I also worried that I’d be considered “damaged goods” if an ex-boyfriend talked about his more intimate moments with me to his friends, if I’d be rendered “undateable.”
I know now, thanks to college and feminism, that my dating history is only a small part of who I am, and that I am still a wonderful human being whether or not I’m in a relationship. I also know that people who care about me will not judge or define me based on my sexual history or my choice of a romantic partner.
Another thing that I wish high school me had known is that other girls are NOT my competition.
I am embarrassed to admit that I am still learning this today, but it is so true. I don’t need, didn’t need, to compete with certain girls just because I could. It’s especially crucial to realize this now, because I look back and see myself making myself sick with jealousy because I wasn’t as pretty as “Jennifer” was, or wasn’t as smart as “Angelica.”
Isn't competition wonderful sometimes? Yes, because it can motivate us to better ourselves—but the way that girls compete in high school is completely different. That competition is rooted in comparison. At that age, especially when we’re trying to define ourselves, comparisons make it that much harder to accept our own strengths and weaknesses as uniquely beautiful.
I wish that I had spent time building other girls up in high school, rather than trying to knock them down so that I’d look better. It’s a tough world out there for us girls, and we need to have each other’s backs more than anything.
Last, but not least: I wish I had known that my popularity (or lack thereof) doesn’t reflect my real world likability.
I was a nerd in high school. It’s a fact that I’m not ashamed of now, though I absolutely hated my status in high school. I was in the more advanced classes, often with the popular crowd, and after spending years sitting on the sidelines, unnoticed, I wondered if there was something wrong with me.
Spoiler alert: there wasn’t. Once I left the walls of high school, began working, began college, I was surprised to find that people liked me for me, and not because I could give them the answers to Tuesday’s homework. I learned that the little voices of doubt in my head were liars, that I wasn’t going to end up all alone.
Yes, these are all things that would have made high school so much easier, but I can’t say that I’m angry that I didn’t know them back then. Life is weird, and complicated, and ultimately, I learned these things when I needed them the most, which wasn’t high school.
And that’s quite alright.
