High school.

Bright-eyed, hopeful freshman who still call English class “ELA” to seniors, who were basically dead inside from procrastinating college apps and drinking too much coffee.

Acne. Braces. Shitty boyfriends, you name it.

High school was just a place where you got stumbled over constantly.

Except the high school that I attended was all of that on a shitload of steroids.

I went to school in an over-competitive hell hole, filled to the brim with overachievers and brainiacs who fought neck-in-neck for one point. A fast-paced hellscape that was basically a breeding ground for depression and low self-confidence.

Fast-paced.

For a person who needed a bit more time to understand a concept and really digest the material, honey, I was eating at the wrong restaurant.

As a science nerd, I thought biology my freshman year would be game-changing.

Ha. What a joke,

I basically felt like the soccer ball in a foosball game.

Information was hitting me in every direction and my grades were just getting worse by the minute. Believe me, I loved the class.

Mitosis.

DNA.

Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.

I could not get enough of that stuff, so I just did not understand why in the hell I was doing so poorly.

After looking at my final grade, I came to a conclusion that maybe science and I were just star-crossed lovers. A simple case of unrequited love. I loved science. Science just didn’t love me. Cool.

Each year, however, I had subjects that I had total interest in that I wasn’t doing well in. And these were classes that I actually stayed awake in and actively participated in, but once it was time to assess my knowledge, I suddenly had an IQ of a pickle.

And as the years continued, my self-confidence plummeted and I just told myself that maybe I wasn’t as smart as I thought I was. I graduated high school scoring the highest in self-inadequacy and failure.

College, however, made me realize that I was simply just trying to grow in the wrong place.

You can't plant a flower in a dark place and expect it to grow.

In college, I go to my classes that I chose myself. I study at my own pace and spend as much time as I need to in order to understand the material I’m given.

My space.

My time.

My pace.

And finally, after being claustrophobic for so long...

I can finally breathe.

So if you feel like you’re stuck or unable to grow and you’re determining your self-worth over it, remember...

A fish is only as big as it’s enclosure,

Put a fish in a fish bowl and it’ll stay small forever,

But put a fish in the ocean and it’ll never stop growing.