I wake up every morning exhausted and ready to go back to sleep. I suffer from sleep apnea and insomnia. Due to high anxiety and a lot of thought, I often lie awake at night pondering and self-deprecating. It used to be worse. I used to have thoughts of suicide and toss and turn in my bed just as my stomach would toss and turn due to malnutrition. I wouldn't eat all day and when I did, I threw it up. I used to lie awake and ask myself why I was alive and what was so wrong with me to where I felt the way I did all the time. I would wake up and dread going to school. Although I've overcome these eating disorders and this deep state of depression, I still dread school. I do not dread school simply because I do not like the work or because I'm lazy. I dread school because I feel out of place there. I'm sufficiently intellectual and I excel socially so why would I hate it or feel left out? Why do I sit in these desks all day five days a week and long to be somewhere else.

I have traveled the world and seen some of the most beautiful sights and oppurtunities it has to offer. I have reached deep in my thoughts of different types of people and the attributes that make them beautiful. I have always had to hold my own and overcome the fear of new people due to the busy schedule of my parents. I'm good at meeting new people and getting to know them in small amounts of time because I have always had to do so for myself even since a young age. This attribute has forced me to meet and really get to know all kinds of different people around the world and helping me to realize how superficial high school is. Everyone in high school cares so much what everyone else thinks and how everyone else portrays him or her. I am not asking for a pity party for special treatment, but simply sharing how my experiences relate to my view of high school and those in it.

I believe in the real world. I believe in a world where people aren't afraid to be themselves and show both their strengths and weaknesses. Where people do what they want because a small spark of hope or desire arises in them opposed to doing something because it is trendy. I believe in a place where people actually care about one another and genuinely want to learn all of the beautiful talents and characteristics that come with every individual. I have lived in the real world for a season. Traveling around Europe, I learned so much from and about the people I met and constantly try to apply this knowledge in my everyday life. I tasted complete liberation from my parents in a foreign country and complete liberation from materialistic items without constant virtual communication with my peers. I tasted the liberation of the fear of being rejected because all the people I met were people I would never have to see ever again.

I believe that once someone has tasted this real world, held it on his or her tongue, they will find it impossible to live in the world of high school. It is tiring and unfulfilling to sit in these classrooms and look around at people who care about their social reputation or the person they are trying to portray themselves as more than the beautiful person they are. The pretense and selfishness in some of my peers stakes me in the side everyday leaving splinters that I lie awake at night and pull out with my thoughts.

I believe I fall back into the high school world once and a while and drink the bittersweet nectar of pretense, but I'm only human. I feel this unbearable tug when I sit in these classrooms surrounded by people I feel so secluded from, but occasionally so similar to.. The tug of action, the tug of my desire to go meet people new and learn from them and their culture, memoirs, and passions. People of all ages, genders, ethnicities, and academic levels ect. I also don't see myself as better or worse than any of these people, just beautifully different. I believe in diversity, diversity of race, talents, flaws and personalities.

I believe we can all learn from each other opposed to trying to show one another a fake person with no problems who conforms to the standards of this society we live in.

I believe that one day my classmates will see eye to eye with me and that at reunions I will be able to actually meet my classmates and get to know all of their actually talents, passions, flaws, struggles and desires.

This shall happen in due time, but until then I shall sit in these classrooms, feel the tug, and believe in the hope that when we graduate from high school we will all enter the real world.