From a shy caterpillar to a bloomy butterfly

It's been over eight year since I first took steps into my first year at high school.

Feeling a million thousand of nerves in my stomach and sweat uprise from my palms, I was eager and unprepared to be a freshmen in a highly white populated high school in the North-side suburbs of the Central Valley of California.

I did not know what to expect but was I hoping that these would be the best years to come..... but boy was I wrong.

Nights of stressful and unrested sleep due to my anxiety of feeling so alone and depressed from school. I was depressed for most of my four years of high school, and no one really knew.

I had barely any friends. I would spend the majority of my days at school spending my lunch and break by myself and sitting in the toilet of the bathrooms eating my cold lunches from school.

Each year was different, but what I remember the most was my senior year of high school- considered to be the best years of high school- but it was the most difficult and worse year for me.

My senior year of high school was spent by myself, sitting alone on the tables of the cafeteria or in the bathroom waiting till the bell rang to go to sixth period. I knew some people, but they weren't my "clique" because when I tried to sit and hang with them, I felt out of place... it's like no one wants a new person in their clique when they have been established for years a solid foundation of their clique and social group.

Everyone else I knew from my senior year, would spend their lunches out of campus with their friends having fun, but I spent it crying and feeling hopeless and unwilling to be part of a social group of friends. When I returned to class, I had to put on a smile- because no one likes sad people so I had to pretend I was okay.

It was this time too that I was struggling what I wanted to do after high school and figure out what I wanted to go to college to study for.

Little did I even consider what my passions were and what I would enjoy studying the most to become as a career. And of course, I put little attention to this if my head was so focused on feeling empty from not feeling like I belonged at school.

I did not know what I wanted to do. I was lost.

It was very challenging during this time for me. I remember wanting to give up so many times.... so many times, because I did not see myself becoming happy anytime soon.

Sitting alone in the library or cafeteria made me realize I spent high school alone and not making the best decisions.

I also want to include I did have a good group of people I knew and I did have one good friend that helped me get through the first three years of high school, but she was a year above me and she had graduated and left. She was my only friend, so when she left, I did not have anyone because everyone else was just not the same.

Senior year for me was not what I had expected it to be, but even those seniors now do not see their senior year being what they hoped to either with COVID-19.

What I learned tho, is being alone is okay. I know it was hard, but I managed to get through it. I graduated and left high school- never have to see those people ever again. All those nights I cried myself to sleep or those cold lunches I ate on top of a toilet, would be all over.

I decided that I needed to accept who I was and be okay that I did not have a movie-like high school experience, but there is no such thing. Everyone experiences hardships and huge growth in high school- it's a time to explore and figuration.

After finishing high school, I was able to breathe finally.

The person I was in high school is by past me now.

I am now a senior, fourth year student, at college and and I am not the same person I was in 2014 nor 2017. I am stronger then I was entering those doors of high school, and stronger then I was walking away from high school.

I surpassed those years of high school, feeling alone and depressed, feeling hopeless and trapped to now being able to see the person I am- the person I am supposed to be. I am where I am for a reason.

I grew. I let go. I bloomed.

Now, I am here about to graduate college to become a teacher, and should I be focusing on that, sure but I also want to share stories and adventures.

This is my blog.

This is more than my journal. This is literally my story.

I literally believe everyone has a story to share, and in my blog I get to share you my stories.

All I want to do is make my 14 year old self be proud for who she became, and those endless days and unrested nights, were all worth to see her blooming to a beautiful butterfly.

High School Senior Year Me, 2017

College Senior Me, 2020.