So, Let Us Be Here.
So, it’s my senior year, and quite honestly I don’t feel as if I’m on top of the world like High School Musical 3 led me to believe I would. I’ve been struggling with the feeling that I’m not doing enough to capture my last year of high school, my last year living with my mom, and my last year seeing the girls who have been my best friends since fifth grade every day.
Have you ever cried on your birthday? I definitely have once or twice (every single year.)! I read an article by Refinery29 on the weird tendency, and how it’s really NOT a weird, but common thing. In said article psychologist, Ash King, stated one of the best ways to avoid these cake day blues is to lower our expectations. We put a lot of pressure on ourselves to feel a certain way just because it’s our birthday. These expectations make it THAT much worse when things aren’t perfect.
Objection relevance? Well, senior year has kind of been feeling like a birthday to me, and I’m sure some of you are right there with me. I had these crazy expectations that I was going to be doing fun, interesting things all the time and spending the whole year on cloud nine. Don’t get me wrong, I DO have fun. However, I am also dealing with college applications (hell), schoolwork, and all the other dilemmas I carried from junior year.
So I am currently trying to dispose of these expectations, not because I don’t wanna be happy and live up my senior year, but because I want to let myself feel what I’m feeling, and work through things without the pressure of them not fitting my “senior year criteria”. If not completely rid ourselves of expectations, maybe we can try to replace them with some more realistic standards. For instance, I EXPECT myself to spend time with the people I love this year. I EXPECT myself to savor the last months of being a kid who lives with her parents.
Let’s all step back and be where we are now with no expectations of where we need to be or what we need to be feeling. Thinking too much about the point in our lives in which we stand takes away all the fun. Let’s be here. Remember, struggles may be inevitable, but struggling in silence is not.
XOXO- Tara
