ABOUT(:

There is so much to being a teen girl today. Amongst all the textbook changes in development (physiologically, biologically, physically, cognitively, and socially), these play out on a stage of technology and the script given is the new order of interactions. 

I could never find resources that were specific, recent, or usable. And moreover, there was never anything that described *exactly* what I was going through; at least,not in print. Only in conversations, text messages, the discourse I was involved in were there answers, next steps, validation, relief, and advice for this world that now throws us questions of, “What does it mean if he doesn’t text back?” and timeless ones of our desires against the expectations of everything outside our minds. For this, my biggest goal in communication is to be relevant, applicable, and create movement—in thoughts, relationships, and lives.

I know what it's like to get up in the dark of the morning, not knowing what's going to happen when you step out of your door and into another; to be carrying a stack of books that can't possibly be as heavy as the heart you are freighting as well; to have someone walk by with their world while no one around you knows this significance; to be en route to meet someone who causes you to want to throw-up in the best way; to be walking in a chemical reaction where you lose your mind; to take chances with your image for to steal a glance and hope it's returning the same; to walk with your group of friends and feel on top of the world. 

Ultimately, I believe this time is underestimated; by those observing the cycles of adolescence and those in it.The outside view seems to be that bad things are temporary and should be gotten over quickly, that teenage views can’t possibly be true or genuine, because you’re not 30, so how could you possibly be sure of what you want?, and that we’re all the same and there’s no hope, so the treatment of faces as numbers will do. 

But, they aren’t in your shoes…or your mind…or who you are. 

Who you are today is valid. Not after X, Y, or Z are finished or you get to those places—no, the person you are today and all that you think and believe and feel are legitimate, whether it’s before those who aren’t your age or your friends. No one else is existing in the same place you are at this very moment.

Your chronology does not have to assign you a mediocre life; or, rather, you don’t have to accept it. Find the place you want to go, gather your supplies, lay your route justly, and get there.  As poet Sylvia Plath once said that “Nothing stinks like a pile of unpublished writing,” nothing stinks like a pile of un pursued dreams. 

The biggest misconception I’ve found on both sides is the belief that actions during this time are meaningless: that they don’t count for or mean anything; that the movements and what follows are fleeting. But, I’ve found the actions in this time are like the actions of anytime—they are meaningful and matter,for good and bad. The interring of decisions in the plots of time and inscriptions on the tablet of time will always exist. Moreover, they don’t sit idle; they create precedence for what actions will follow. And even greater,they create a pattern for what kind of person will follow. Actions build the person who will graduate. And that person will still exist after the caps are thrown. 

I’ve watched the caps fly (of those before me and now, including my own) and you don’t get to become a new person in that instant; high school wasn’t a time capsule. Of course there are infinite paths before the graduate (that’s a hallmark of culminating in theK-12 system!) But, the person that will travel those paths was the same mind,body, and heart that walked through those hallways every day and earned every badge or scar that no one tells you goes into your diploma.

I look at some people and see the patterns they created in their behaviors during high school that continue today—good and bad. For some, it’s taking them from that school, putting them in real life, and watching them keep on in the new environment. And for others…sometimes it’s like high school descent on repeat, but increasingly worse; like stirring a batter and continually adding bad ingredients, a worse product coming to exist in each revolution; and, in each of those circular motions, everything that happened in high school rushes frustratingly back. For both the good and the bad, the behaviors independent of the environment and continue on.

So, who do you want to be when the timer is up? 

For me, it’s a time of getting to paint who you want to be, deciding what you really mean, and an unbounded well of possibilities. It’s an extraordinary time; the rips are deep, but so is the goodness. Days and people glitter with opportunities, and in our own time,trials turn into triumphant glories. 

I love the looks that fly across hallways and open spaces, when that voice you long to hear cuts through the frequencies of everyone else, the sight of texts meeting each other message for message, those messages and conversations you take screenshots of. I love this time. And I don’t believe the infinite possibilities, boldness and belief in oneself, and enduring belief in the future should ever end. 

With every word, I’m fueled by the love for our age; in the beauty of our triumphs, heartaches, and the knowledge that it’s never too early to live a spectacular life. Take your life by the horns and burst out of those gates—expectations, others, the intangibilities—and run your race.

I want to know what it’s like for you! I want to hear about what’s going on in the same and other parts than where I am. To converse, support, advise, analyze, it’s what I love as we figure out the infinite avenues of life. Contact me if there’s something you want to talk about, need to get off your chest, let me know. I receive it so greatly. I want to listen, I want to talk.  

xo,

Sha