if you read it all ily 🤟

If you would have asked me a year ago why I was deciding not to go back to public school, I would have told you I wanted to work to help my mom. Now I realize that was just an attempt to escape reality. I really left public school because of a grief driven breakdown I didn’t even realize I was having, and I’m finally okay with myself in admitting that.

My grandpa died on February 3. I went back to school on the fourth. My family was at the house almost all week. The morning of the 8th was his funeral and that night was my junior prom. My friends and I were distancing and I knew it was my fault. I was trying to get used to them not being there because they were graduating.

In Band, a month later, we made history by being the first group of students in our town to get sweepstakes. A week later, OAP did not advance, and a day after that COVID canceled the school year. I was finally alone. Not surrounded by people I cared about or who cared about me. It was just me.

I finished junior year in my bedroom. It took me maybe two hours combined to finish the work I had in the last month and a half. And in doing that, everything hit me. My grandpa was dead. My rock. My best friend. The man I’d learned most things in life from.

We weren’t going to have an end of the year concert to show how well we’d been doing all year. There wasn’t going to be a normal graduation or anything similar. I was just gonna have to accept that my friends weren’t gonna be there anymore. I was never going to touch the light board in OAP again.

I’ve never put a lot of effort into school (sorry to the teachers that are reading this). I didn’t need to. It almost makes me wonder what would have happened if I’d actually studied. I made up my mind on doing homeschool and never looked back. Don’t get me wrong, it does make me sad to see my classmates doing what I chose not to have (and I’m super proud of them!), but I was able to do my work as it came, when I had time, and I was able to work, help my family, and actually process my life instead of going through motions for eight hours.

I graduated from The American Academy in February, started taking courses at OPSU online, and finished my last class this semester today. And I know, I know. One semester. Well, technically half a semester. Not that big of a deal. But to me it is. And I’m gonna toot my own horn because I really didn’t think I could do it.

In the past year, I’ve changed a lot. Ive picked up some new friends, got closer with some old ones. I’ve learned to accept what I cannot change and roll with it instead, to appreciate the small things, to take the beaten path once in a while, and to never stop bettering myself. And I couldn’t be more proud of me.

-me