Personal Narrative: High School

There was an aura about the dirty park gazebo that felt like home for an angry fourteen year old. In a circle, backs pressed against cement walls, sweaty arms stuck together, was a group of kids that I found would be my family. The ground below us was covered with shards of glass and miscellaneous remnants from the night before as if to mark our territory with trash. It was a shabby old building, covered in graffiti, and it was dark after nine. But to a crowd of brooding teenagers, it was a bunker inside of a warzone: high school.
Among the crowd, one boy stood away from the wall. His arms weren't physically entangled with the rest of us, his blue eyes were slightly brighter, and I knew that somehow different. I later found out that he was …show more content…
He eventually dropped out, but I kept persevering. After having many problems with my school, I was presented with an opportunity to repeat my junior year at a new school. At Landmark, kids are taught to work with their learning disability instead of pretending it doesn’t exist. The option of trying my junior year again twisted an anxious knot in my stomach. I had a significant choice to make. I could continue spending my days hanging out with my friends, making reckless decisions, not caring about anything, like James did, or I could give high school one last try. I was in such a discouraged state of mind. I did not have high hopes simply because I had never been in a place with people who thought I was capable of success. All I knew at this point in my life was failure. This took a tremendous toll on my self esteem and caused me to act out in self destruction. Much like James, I was angry at society for thinking I was inadequate, and I was angry at myself for not being able to prove everyone wrong. Essentially, what I was choosing was to either give up, or give it my best effort at a new school and embrace the possibility of excruciating