Here goes nothing! My Life & Times.: There's a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.

In Target I overheard a mom talking to her daughter. The daughter was upset about being sent to a high school with uniforms. She was throwing a big pouty fit, whining over and over again about how she was going to hate high school. The mom said, over and over again, you won't hate it. You can't hate it. High school is the best time of your life.
I was told that a lot too. High school is supposedly the best time in everyone's life. Why?

I cringe every time I hear somebody say that. I hated high school. I hated the institution. I hated it's forced religion. I hated most of those fakey people. Over and over again, usually when I was in trouble, people within those walls reminded me that those were the best years of my life, so I shouldn't be doing ____ or hanging out with ______. The message sent in a nonstop loop to my brain was, "You should be happy. Enjoy these times. These are The. Best. Days. Of. Your. Life."

What a terrible thing to tell young people - that life doesn't get any better than high school. It doesn't give much hope to people who are like I was - people whose high school years sucked. I hated myself in high school. None of my friends went to the same school as I did. I hated how I looked. I felt like a total outcast in my tiny school. I didn't like what everyone else liked. I didn't want to go out for sports and I didn't care about computer club or anything like that. Middle school and high school were definitely the darkest times in my life. I thought several times,

Well, if this these are the best years of my life, then I guess the rest of my life will really suck. It's all down hill from here.

It isn't. It wasn't. My life is so much better now than I ever thought it could be. I wish somebody would have told me that.

Never in a million years would I have guessed that by August 2010 I would be raising a perfect son, planning my wedding, and feeling 100% at peace with my life. I never thought I would ever look back on my life and feel like it is just right for me.

But here I am, 21 years old, and I feel comfortable with where I am today. My life is good. My life is perfect for me. Not perfect, but perfect for me. No one else could be living my life better than I am. No one else's life would be better suited to me. I belong here. I fit in here.

Each evening I close my eyes and go to sleep knowing that I am in a good place. Every morning I wake up next to the love of my life. Every afternoon I feel so much joy as Oliver reaches up for me, smiling, refreshed after his nap. There are still bills and bad hair days and parking tickets and rainstorms. But everything is perfect. Just because I say so.

"High school is the best years of your life."

Bullshit. I've changed that. From now on, I am going to say:

"Next year will be the best year of my life."

So far, it's been true.