Help, I Am A Teenager!

Wow, puberty is not friendly what so ever. You look around and quietly say to yourself, "Why does it seem like I am the only one with acne?" Yeah, so you are in sort of a rough spot, right? Let me guess... Your clothes do not fit right, your mom buys you tampons that you still have not quite figured out just how to use them right or even how to go about inserting... Oh never-mind, you know what I am talking about, I am sure... But to top it all off, you just cannot seem to stay focused in any of your classes because there is a super cute boy in almost every one of your classes, and in almost every single class he sits right in front of you, but hey that is okay right because you can stare all that you want and he does not even know that you are, even if it is just simply the back of his head and you think that his cow-lick just adds another thing that you can't help but be infatuated of about this boy, pretty good aren't I? Finally, you do not even have a clue what the difference is between Medicaid and medicare or even what either of those is. 

Let me lay out all of the rules of being a teenager; What you should and should not wear, how you are supposed to act around a crush, and what gender that you are. HAHA, and you thought that it was going to be that easy! Sadly, being a teenager does not come with a set of instructions so let me tell you a short story, which by the way is a true story...

In middle school, I was a chubby fifteen-year-old girl who knew that I was a girl, I knew that I was straight and I also knew everything that there was to know about the world. One day, I decided that maybe I was bi-sexual because there was this girl that I had study-hall with and I thought that she was pretty. Then I noticed a new boy sitting behind me one afternoon during class and I thought that he was super hot and that I also must have a thing for older men. Then I turned sixteen after a very emotionally challenging break-up with a boyfriend that was never official and I decided to man-up and figure things out in my way.

I read articles and brochures on mental health, depression, and motivational books. Finally, at the ripe age of seventeen, I thought that I finally stood as a person, what my vague goal for life was, and that I was in fact, very straight and that I was not such a total waste of space. My confidence in my body, my face, and also in my choices started to grow immensely. I knew that I was finally mature enough to have a real boyfriend or so I thought. As a teenager, I was almost certain that I would grow up to have over a million dollars, a degree in Psychology, seven extremely weird children, a loving cat, and a decent husband. I was positive that I would know the answer to every single mystery in life, including understanding how insurance works and what a mortgage does.

Well, the ending might just be a little bit too far-fetched, but the rest is true, with a few small details left to be discussed. My point is that you cannot decide what things are going to happen and when they will happen in your life. Sometimes you just have to roll with the punches or fix your mistakes, as well as learn from them too, to better improve yourself in the future. Sometimes your parents are not always wrong, but let me tell you that they are not always right either. Sometimes your parents or your guardians try to make you into what they desire for you to become. Sometimes they will expect you to be perfect, even though they know darn well that they were not even close to being perfect whenever they were your age. However, outside all of that is usually the basis that they simply just want something better for you than what they had.

I know that every situation is different for each teenager; You may or not have a mom, you may or may not have a dad, you may or may not even have either mom or dad, heck- You may or may not even have one or two of the other. Some people have never even known theirs, some parents are divorced, in prison, or simply disconnected altogether from their role as a parent. Even if you do not fit the stereotypical "Mom, Dad and Child" picture that most adults use whenever they are referring to a family, there is always somebody who is looking out for you. It could be a teacher, a friend, a counselor, a foster parent, a grand-parent, an uncle, a sister, or a brother and it could even just be yourself. My personal belief is that a family should consist of a married man and woman, but I know that not everybody has that or believes that. You just need to know that there is always ALWAYS somebody out there that cares about YOU whether you believe me or not.