In one’s high school years, a lot can change. These changes may initially be unwanted and seem bad. Personally, my first year of high school shaped me a lot as a student, friend, athlete and as an overall person. Although I know now that everything turned out for the best, going through my freshman year felt a lot like a series of never-ending unfortunate events.

Going into the school year, my 14-year-old self was a bit intimidated, but mostly ready to tackle this new chapter of my life. However, after the first two months of high school, it seemed almost everything I once held as a foundation of my life was gone. I felt as if I was stripped of some of the most key factors of my identity.

To give some background of my life at this point, throughout middle school, my favorite sport was volleyball. I played every season and spent almost all my time on the courts. I had attended the DHS volleyball clinics since I was in elementary school and loved growing up playing with my friends.

My summer had gone pretty smoothly, just a typical go to the pool, hang with your friends kind of summer, until the last few weeks. I had come down with the worst case of tonsilitis my doctors had ever seen. At one point, when all the medication in my system ceased to work and I had gone days barely being able to sleep, eat or drink, my mother took me into Children’s Mercy. After lots of treatment, I finally recovered, and just in time for volleyball tryouts.

Overall, my tryout was shaky. After two days of tryouts, I was pulled to the side and told I didn’t make the team. Needless to say, I felt as if my world had crumbled around me. Volleyball was the one sport I had chosen to pursue. After all of the years I had played, now what was I supposed to do?

After some time of beating myself up about the fact I hadn’t succeeded, I had regained focus on other things. I still had lots of new high school experiences keeping me busy.

Me and my boyfriend I’d held on to since middle school broke up, leaving me without a date to my very first Homecoming. Again, you can only imagine how devastated I was.

Things began to look up when me and a friend decided to ask boys from our church to the dance. Who needed DHS boys anyway? After school, we had gotten together and were working on the sign to propose with when, just my luck, after a performance of dancing on the stairs went awry, I broke my foot.

This little number left me in a cast up to my knee, and resulted in missing a week of school. Missing that much school had left me in piles of homework and left me in even bigger piles of stress. This overload of work then led to my next event, one I am not too proud of: cheating on my World Geography test. At the time, it didn’t seem to be that big of a deal to not memorize all of the countries of Africa and just cheat, until I got caught.

I was sent to the office, given a yellow detention slip for three hours after school on a Friday and felt more embarrassment and guilt than ever before. It didn’t seem like my year could get any worse, I had a cast on my foot and was stamped as a delinquent. But it just so happened that Friday of my detention was the day of my best friend’s birthday party, and I would be LATE. I felt like the worst friend of all time. Then the word got out about what I did. My classmates all knew; I didn’t even want to show up to school anymore, it was just too embarrassing.

Time went by, I went to the dance with my casted leg, I got my braces off after years of anticipation, and got back on top of handling my grades. Eventually, the cast came off as well, and things seemed to be going smoothly. That is until I realized that most of the people I had considered my friends had vanished from my life. I still had my very best friend, but I felt as if I’d never even met some of the people I’d known since first grade.

The thing about high school is that it’s the time when people mature and grow the most. Decisions made start to affect people and the people they hang out with. I guess I had just chosen to go down a different path than some of my classmates.

The reality of this can be truly sad for a 14 year old, and it was. It was really hard to watch people I had known so well start to make poor decisions.

Club volleyball season eventually came around, and it just felt wrong. My season ended up being the worst of my career, and I came out with a concussion and a broken finger.

The concussion was minor, but still took me out of a week of school. That left me once again in mountains of homework and under stress. My broken finger required reconstruction with pins through surgery, so I spent the majority of my spring break recovering and laying around. Prior to my freshman year, I had never broken a bone, but for the second time that year, I had a cast on.

Other than joining the newspaper staff at semester, I desperately wanted to be involved in my school. I decided to run for Student Council; it was something I had really wanted. I put up my posters in the hallway and when election day came, I was nervous. The list was posted, and my name wasn’t on it. It felt as if I failed at everything I tried.

My freshman year ended in me being involved in a terrible car accident, nobody was fatally injured, but it was an experience that shook me up for a while.

Needless to say, my freshman year was filled with unfortunate events that caused me to feel as if I was lost and sometimes just downright made me mad at the world.

Reflecting back on these experiences, I have honestly learned so much, and found who I am truly supposed to be. Without a few dumb mistakes, injuries and failures, how would I know what’s actually good for me?

Had I not been caught cheating, I may have made it a habit not to study and just to rely on others. I tried again at the athletics scene, this time trying a new sport, tennis. I am going on my second season, and it has brought me more joy than volleyball ever did. I tried again at STUCO. I made it my sophomore year and now this year I am a junior class officer. I have made new friends and found some of the most impactful people in my life. Had I not been in accidents and got hurt, I wouldn’t be as careful as I am today.

Your high school years can get tough, and it can leave you with some injuries and some replanning. But I promise you, it truly is what you make of it, and being able to learn from your mistakes and try again is what prepares you for life and shapes you into the person you want to be. It’s not always easy, and you may not see the purpose for something in the moment, but I promise, It always turns out for the best. Change can be good.