As I sit here and try to write about my experiences in high school and how it has shaped me I can’t seem to think of anything. There is nothing during my time here that has significantly changed me in any way. No event, sport, milestone, teacher, or friend. School hasn’t changed me, real life has changed me. Experiencing how truly different and cruel the world can be. I don’t want to be too pessimistic because the world can be beautiful and have many good things within it, but some days I can only count those good things on one hand. So I guess you could call this my letter to all of you about the most important life lessons people in my life and the world have taught me. Hopefully, some of you learn something too. 

Lesson one comes from my dearest father. A day you don’t do something is a day wasted. My dad says a lot of things, some of which don’t make sense, but this one is clear as day. I can remember being young and every time my dad would wake up after the sun had already come up he would say, “I’m wasting the daylight.” A day that you do nothing and sit on your butt complaining about what you could be doing, or how things could have been, is wasting your time. You’re only given so much time in this life and tomorrow is never promised. So quit whining, complaining and being lazy. Go do something with your life, and don’t waste the daylight. 

The next lesson that I have learned is, don’t regret anything. Now I’m not saying go through life doing whatever you want with no regard for anything or anyone else. What I’m saying is to not dwell on what mistakes you have made in the past. Don’t regret the bad that you have done, learn and grow from it. If you wouldn’t have done all of those stupid things in the past you wouldn’t be who you are today. One mistake doesn’t define your entire future. You’re all young. We are made to feel as though we are grown up and what happens now will matter when we’re old, but that’s not true at all. We’re all still kids trying to figure out life, hell there are some grown adults that don’t know what they’re doing with their lives. So don’t regret the things that made you, you. 

The third lesson I learned from my past relationship is that loyalty is the most important part of a relationship. I’ve always said that cheaters were the scum of the earth. So this paragraph is for those of you that cheat in relationships, and if you’ve ever been cheated on you can agree with me on this. If you don’t want to be with someone anymore and want to be with someone else, then just tell them that and break up instead of cheating on them. Personally, I would much rather have someone tell me the truth to my face rather than have them go behind my back. If you reading this are someone who cheats and has never been cheated on, please let me explain the pain that you are putting that person through. When you get cheated on you feel worthless like no one could love you. You feel like you will never be enough because there is always someone better than you. It feels like a thousand twenty-pound cement bricks are crushing down on you as your whole world is imploding in on you because everything that you had known as true was all, one. big. lie. 

In the last year, I’ve learned a big lesson. I’m sure all of you will eventually learn which is, don’t sacrifice your life for temporary happiness. I thought that living wild and partying would make me happy after my relationship with a serial cheater, and it did for a little while. Until I started spiraling down a path I didn’t know that I would ever get out of. I was pushing boundaries and crossing all the lines that one could cross. I took every person that was in my life down with me, but hey at least I was having fun right? Wrong. It all came back to bite me in the ass. I completely destroyed my life for a little fun and people who I thought were my friends but didn’t really give a shit about me. I pushed away my family, the only people who really care about me. I came out of it though because I learned from it. I realized the people I really needed in my life and that is my family.

Kinda piggybacking off of my last lesson because this one is about the person who pulled me out of it. My grandpa. He taught me never to give up on that person in your life that’s struggling with their own. When I was in my dark time I had pushed away everyone, even my own mom and dad. I only had one person in my corner and that was my grandpa. I didn’t understand why he still cared about me and getting me on the right path and helping me, because everyone else had given up. Until he said to me, “If I give up on you, you’ll give up on yourself.” and that’s what hit me. That’s when the change started. It broke me out of this curse that I had put on my life. Without him, I’d probably be in jail or dead. So for that, I give my eternal gratitude. It is something I will never be able to repay him for. I love you, Gramps. 

If you made it this far it means that you really cared about what I had to say. I hope that you learned something from what I shared with all of you. I’m only eight-teen and I know I’m wise beyond my years because I’ve heard it my whole life. I also know that I have a lot of life left to live, and so many more hardships left to live and lessons left to learn. Every day is a blessing, don’t let it go to waste. I’m ready to see what the future holds for me, and to the world, I say “Bring it on!” because there’s nothing I can’t take. So live your life and be a decent human being, and if there’s one last token of advice I can give to you it would be, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.