My Story Through High School

This is a story of my time through high school and of what I went through that has brought me to where I am today. School has never been my strong suit in life. Ever since I first came through the front door I wanted high school to be over. I started out my freshman year on crutches and this was definitely very hard to do. I remember going up the ramp already late for the first class and getting yelled at by the assistant principal for wearing my hat. On the very first day I already had problems with administration. I’m not going to lie and say that I was pleasant to him because I wasn’t. I spoke my mind very clearly and put him in his place. He wasn’t respectful of my situation and wasn’t respectful of me as a person by the way he talked to me. People told me that it wasn’t the right thing to do but for me it was the right thing to do. I was always taught to stand up for myself and in highschool I had to do this a lot. Especially during freshman year because the older kids thought it was funny to try and kick out my crutches or take them from me. I always stood up for myself and didn’t let them scare me.

It took a lot of hard work to be able to make it through the tough times mainly on my own. I dealt with way more things on the inside that I didn’t show on the outside. I became addicted to the opiates that they had me on after surgery but nobody knew. I wasn’t able to talk to my friends about it because they didn’t seem to care. Life and school were hard for me but I finally overcame my addiction and stopped taking the pills and dealt with the pain instead. I was able to get back into sports but this wasn’t the best decision. I messed up my leg even more by playing and this led to another surgery. Finding myself going down this road again I knew it wasn’t going to be good. I was put on more pain medications and while taking them my addiction only got stronger, I knew I had to stop so I refused to continue taking them. By this time I had found myself a new girlfriend who knew that she was going to lose the person I was if she didn’t help me overcome this struggle. She became my rock and the person who helped me through my hardest time of my life. Even when school got hard and things weren’t going for me in life she always helped me figure it all out.

After my surgeries, the hardest pill to swallow was giving up what I loved to do and that was playing lacrosse and football. I knew that I wasn’t physically fit to play them ever again, but that didn’t make this any easier. Around this time I was completely broke. I could barely afford to put 10 dollars in my truck to make it to school and back home. This really made me feel horrible about myself. I knew that my current attitude and situation was not one I wanted to keep, so I made a commitment to myself to turn it around. I started doing everything that I could to start making money and being able to do what I wanted. I knew I couldn’t play sports or ride dirt bikes anymore, but I could still ride a snowmobile and go fishing. These two things became so crucial to my happiness and my recovery process. I fought to make myself a better person and to stay clean by finding other pain management methods for my ankle. By fighting these battles and seeing all the people around me who did not have to endure these struggles, I persevered through and got my strength and savings back. I soon stuck myself with the motto of some people are born on top and others have to claw their way there. This is what I did, I started doing better in school and got a job and started saving my money. By doing this I created a strong work ethic and didn’t stop until the job was done. I brought my grades up by working harder and getting extra help from my teachers when I didn’t understand a topic.

Now it is the end of senior year and I have found who I am and how I want to live my life. I had plenty of hard times throughout high school but this helped mold me into who I am today. I just want people to know that they need to fight through their own hardships in life and be the person that you want to be. Every single person has their own story and we can’t all have the same exact story. The things that happen to us don’t define us but what we take from them and how we turn them around to learn from it do. A lot of people never have to worry about this, but most of us do. Like I said earlier,  some people are born on top and others have to claw their way there.

Photo by Shandi-lee on Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND