I decided to do a 12 mile run on the treadmill today because there was a chance of rain. Ok, I actually just wanted to catch up on One Tree Hill episodes which I’ve started watching on Netflix. As I was watching the show, I was thinking for about the 100 billionth time how much I hated high school. Now don’t get me wrong, there were some fun moments. But for me, those fun moments were so rare and always clouded with my insecurity.

These are the least awkward photos I could find! Man, I rocked those wispy bangs.

I didn’t really stand out in high school. I wasn’t super popular or super nerdy-I fell somewhere in between. I was bullied, and sometimes I was the bully. (Sorry Franklin. It was middle school but it still counts. We never should have made you cry for loving Free Willy.) Friendships were never solid. I had friends who weren’t so great but I wanted them to like me. And there were people who wanted to be my friend but I thought I was too cool for them. There were moments of self-hatred. At 5’5″ and 130 lbs, my child-mind thought I was too fat. When I made it to 95 lbs, I was perfect, but a failure because I couldn’t keep it up. (Don’t worry I’m nice and healthy now! )In my mind, everything in life was black or white. I wanted to be perfect and loved by everyone, and if I couldn’t have that I was worthless. Reading my high school journals are SO depressing. I never felt like I belonged and I wasn’t strong enough to be OK with that.

The reason I want to become a high school English teacher is so I can go back to high school and be elected the prom queen and be a good role model. I hope to be the coolest teacher ever, but if I’m not then it’s ok. I want to introduce teenagers to the world of literature, so they can see that reading is fun, and maybe have somewhere to escape to when they can’t deal with their lives at the moment. I want to encourage them to be original and creative, and not to be afraid to express themselves. I want to teach them to be kind to each other and themselves, and to be open minded rather than judgmental. I don’t care if I end up being that weird teacher whose hair is always messed up and has no fashion sense and is a little scatterbrained. I just want to help kids get through the day and realize that life isn’t so bad after all.

My boyfriend Tony says high school was AWESOME. He’s still friends with a lot of people he graduated with, and he says he’d go back and do it all again in a heartbeat. I told him we would’ve have never dated in high school…

He's the stud in the middle

But I would’ve definitely dated him in preschool!

Just to be sure to end this post on a happy note, here’s what I had for dinner on Friday:

There's frozen yogurt under there :)