Live Your Life as a Teen | Teen Ink

Live Your Life as a Teen

April 20, 2023
By Anonymous

You're only in high school for 720 days.


That's 720 days of waking up at 6 am, occasionally trying to make yourself look presentable, but most days throwing on a hoodie and some sweatpants.

 It seems like a long time.

 You can meet your best friends that will stay in your life forever. 

Or you can make friends that you'll say goodbye to at the end of the month.

 You can make insane memories that you'll one day end up telling your future kids. 

You figure out what kind of person you are, and what kind of person you want to be, and you get the opportunity to share it with people. 

You could be the popular one with countless "friends" that you'll one day say goodbye to, or you can be the "nerd" who only has three friends but you all mean the world to each other. 

720 days is a lot of time to fit in as much love and heartbreak. But you also have more than enough time to find your person, maybe even more than once. And that is A-Okay. 

720 opportunities to live outside of your comfort zone, 720 opportunities to tell them you love them, 720 days to shut the toxic people out of your life. 

There is so much you can do in 720 days.
You can kiss 70 people, or one, or maybe even none.

 You can sneak out and have butterflies in your stomach about getting caught.

 720 days to fit so many important milestones in your life. 

It seems like forever, until one day you blink- and it's gone.

 You're not 16 anymore, you're walking across a graduation stage. Looking down at all the people you've surrounded yourself with for the last 720 days, and you probably don't even know most of their names.

 The teacher you hated is congratulating you with tears in their eyes, while the teacher you loved looks at you with a sigh of relief.

 People change, and that's ok.

 You realize high school is nothing like the movies, this is real. 

And once upon a time, it was yours. 

It feels like a week ago you walked into your first period of your freshman year. 6 days ago you went through your first heartbreak. 5 days ago you got your license. 4 days ago you were packed in a car with all your friends, so full you could hardly move. 3 days ago you became best friends with the quiet kid, and they turned out to be the best friend you've ever had. 2 days ago the feeling hit. Yesterday, you cried because it was all over. Today you blinked, and it was all gone. Tomorrow, it will all just be memories.

So live like there's no tomorrow, because one day every tomorrow you've ever dreamed of- 

will be gone.


The author's comments:

I recently thought about how short high school is, and realized just how close I am to adulthood. How close I am to it being over. I am learning to embrace my high school experience, and I hope you do too.


Similar Articles

JOIN THE DISCUSSION

This article has 0 comments.