A Little Bit Brave

Sixteen was waking up feeling like I could take on the world. Sixteen was dreaming about the future that I was sure would happen. Sixteen was loosing that future and finding a better one. Sixteen was taking one step forward. Sixteen was watching Youtube videos and thinking "I could do that." Sixteen was listening to Tori Kelly. Sixteen was living my dream of seeing Tori Kelly live. Sixteen was loosing friends. Sixteen was finding better friends. Sixteen was falling on my knees because I had nowhere else to go. Sixteen was crying and hurt. And laughter and mercy. Sixteen was finding genuine confidence. Sixteen was skater skirts and flower crowns. Sixteen was heartbreak. Sixteen was joy anyway. Sixteen was a little bit brave. Seventeen is a mystery. I can't wait to see what it holds.

We laughed until our sides hurt and tears came to our eyes. At this point, we weren't even laughing about the original joke. After ten minutes, it was a miracle we even had breath left. And yet we kept going. And that was just ten minutes out of a six day trip. I almost didn't go to that tournament. My heart was burning from a deep rejection. I was going through the motions, wishing for winter's months to come to an end. Spring felt decades away. I wished I were graduating this year instead of next. I wished I could start over with an entirely new group of people. I wished for the hurt to go away. But things hardly ever go as I wish them to. My fragile glass heart was broken, and the shards cut my soul. I held onto hope, but that hope was just a thread that I clutched as I walked in the dark, looking for a way out. When I deal with things, I deal with things on my own. Much of the time, this is stupid. Closing yourself off to Youtube videos and books isn't actuall...

I denied it at the beginning of this year. I didn't want to believe it. But now that it's April, I can't get away from it. You're graduating. You're done. You're going off to college and leaving behind the ridiculousness of high school. Remember when we thought this day would never come? The days of saying, "psh, I don't need to worry about college because that is literally forever away," were replaced with days of saying "omigosh college applications essays SAT ACT why didn't I do this when I was a sophomore???" Suddenly you had to worry about senior pictures and graduation parties and senior trips and senior prom and being old and all that other senior stuff. And you didn't even get cheaper pancakes at IHOP. When I think back four years, to when you were a freshman and I was in 8th grade (the difference didn't matter because we were homeschooled), it's such a different picture from the one I see when I open my eyes. ...