On April 10th 2019, I turned 17. I rang in my new age on the circle Line ferry. Like the ride I took on this boat out of a harbor on 11th avenue, the ride was long, bumpy and somewhat nauseating, while still managing to be fun, exciting, and beautiful at all the same time.

A lot happens in a year, but in this particular year, I experienced an unprecedented amount of change. I graduated early from high school, started college, moved out of my childhood home into a new house, met a bunch of new people, and fell out of touch with just as many. Life was unkind to people close to me, and I felt powerless and realized how harsh the word I could be. My mental health reached its lowest in response to all this change, and I struggled a lot! 16 was a fresh cut, but 17 was a slow unwavering pain. Fortunately, I did find moments of repose. These moments are what got me through everything else.

Shortly after my birthday. My mom told us that we needed to graduated early. She had applied for a scholarship to study and teach in a small island in the middle of the Mediterranean called “Malta”. I thought this was great because she would have the opportunity to seriously beef up her resume and I would be taking a gap semester in a foreign country. What could go wrong? Spoiler alert: My mom did not get the scholarship, and we didn’t get to go to Malta. I had made all of these preparations for a gap semester, only to realize that I had nowhere to go. The timing of this was not ideal because it was June. I had a week to decide if I was going to graduate from high school junior year or stay for my senior year.

     The thing about big decision making in my household is that things are determined by a 2/3 majority, quite literally. As a triolet, existing as a free agent in the eyes of my parents (and the world) is just not an option for me. This is something that I’ve come to accept and understand as I’ve grown up. In this case, however, it played toward the hand of my detriment. 

In place of my “Junior Conference” where id be telling my guidance counselor where I wanted to go to college and discussing my plans for the future. We’d be going over the details of my graduation, which would be happening that august. I’d been told by my mom “not to mess this up for my sisters.” I was told not to show any hesitation towards the idea or my guidance counselor might not let me and my sisters graduate. I tried to tell her that it was possible that I could stay back in high school. I hadn’t chosen a college yet and I still didn’t know what I wanted to do after high school. I had made my concerns known however, If there was ever a time to protest my mother's wishes, today was not the day.

The morning I had to go into my guidance counselor was absolutely beautiful. The morning sun kissed the faces of all of the east-facing houses in my neighborhood. I’d walk down this long stretch of sidewalk called “dogwood road” to get to my school, and the sun would shine towards me in the same way it did the east-facing houses. The air was fresh and cool. It was the kind of morning I’d come to love. The morning felt like MY time, and I reveled in it.

However beautiful the morning, the inside of me felt unstable. I was queasy. I was walking hard and fast towards the edge of a cliff with no sign of stopping. It felt like I was dangled over an overpass upside down by the ankles.

The worst part was waiting for the doors to open outside with my best friend. I hadn’t told her yet, and I wasn’t really sure how. I didn’t have to because my “youngest” sister had essentially told the entirety of my grade when everything was set in stone.

The biggest regret I had from that day is that I didn’t advocate for myself. Deep down I know everything was happening to fast for me to comprehend, and I didn’t want to leave my friends and watch them hit all of their senior year milestones without me. I didn't want to give up my chorus teacher, her classroom and the community that I built there. I didn’t want to give up bugging my favorite English teachers before the first period with my best friends. I didn’t want to give up our Friday afternoons at the cafe nearby where we would hang out make messes, be way too loud, and fumble over our words when that cute (overaged) barista took our orders. Me saying that I wanted to graduate early was like saying that I wouldn’t miss these things and that all of these moments weren’t beautiful or sweet enough to get me to stay. In reality, they had been the most beautiful and the absolute sweetest parts of my time in high school. Which is why I had been so angry at myself when I told my guidance counselor that I was, in fact, ready to leave high school.

    The words hadn’t actually left my mouth but were more of a series of hesitant nods. It felt like my guidance counselor was in it. She had been conspiring with my mother and was determined to change everything just for the sake of torturing me and making me feel like the ground was crumbling beneath my feet. I was being swept along as a part of a plan, not of my own construction. My future was being planned out for me right then and there and I could not muster the courage to say “no, this is not what I want.” I didn’t even really know what I wanted at that point, but it didn’t matter. My sisters wanted to graduate early, so I was graduating early.

       Fast-forwarding through the end of the year, after telling my friends and teachers and being met with “congratulations” and “good for yous” that I did not deserve, was the last day of school.

  My brain had completely left my body. I was outside myself. I wanted to see one of my old AP English teachers for the last time.  I walked in and asked for a piece of tape. (this is as far as my social aptitude would take me.) He handed me the tape and I took it. There was so much I wanted to say. What do you say to an old teacher on the last day of school? I wanted to say thanks for teaching me how to write! Thank you for making us read “to kill a mockingbird” despite it not being mandatory in the curriculum! Thanks for showing all of us so many cool songs! Thanks for being authentically you, and just an all-around cool teacher! You understood us in a way that made you a little more real. Please write that book! Please please PLEASE write that book!”

    I didn’t say any of this. I don’t remember what I said. I hope it wasn’t stupid.

This was the first of many pieces of tape I asked for that day.

After a long, hot, grueling summer of finishing my credits for graduation, I was "ready" for college.

     The school I chose had not been one that I originally saw myself going to. It was 15 minutes away from my house, took me late in the admissions process, and offered me the most financial aid. It was technically the only school I applied to. I got in.

      I seen the entire semester wondering what my life would be like if I had stayed in high school. what would happen if I gave myself a year to work, plan and apply to a college somewhere else, somewhere that I chose, and not just a convenient last-second choice? It was easy to point fingers and blame others for my sadness. I was angry at teachers who lied to me and told me that I was prepared and that I was college-ready. I was angry at my parents who “made me” do all of this and go to a school I didn’t like while staying home for college. This was the easy reaction, but it wasn’t their fault that I was struggling academically, finding it hard to make friends, and feeling emotionally disconnected. It wasn’t their fault that I couldn’t make friends easily. My discomfort in a new situation wasn’t their fault, it was mine. The adults around me might have been the reason why I graduated early, but the depression and the growing pains were of my own making (however unintentionally). I felt like there was something wrong with me because my sisters were thriving and all of my family were so proud of us. We were the first of my grandmother's grandchildren to go to college. Despite this, I felt like I failed myself. I was angry at the world for putting me where I was (which wasn’t even a terrible place). All of this in addition to the turbulence that comes with moving houses. I remember the day that I finally broke.

       The straw that broke the camels back was a light. The electricity in my room had been re-wired that day, and the light in my room didn’t work because they hadn’t finished. I was tired. I came home, walked upstairs without talking to anyone. ( unlike me, yet my new routine) I flicked the switch, and the light switch didn’t turn on. None of my lights worked and my floor was covered in dust. I got in my bed and cried for the first time in 

 It was such a small thing that it shouldn’t have made me burst into tears. But it was now January, and for the past five months, I have felt a deep, heavy and ever-present sadness. I have been holding my breath for eternity, and I tiptoed around my family, my new “friends” and everyone I had come into contact with since I turned 17. I had never felt so lonely in my life. I was unhappy in every sense of the word, but I hated myself because I shouldn’t have been this sad. I was finally at the place every high schooler dreams about. I finally had my own room! I was still living with my parents, but the school I was going to had given me a great scholarship! Everything in my life had fallen into place and progressed like clockwork, so why was I so sad? I was angry at myself for every journey to the student personal counseling center that started with me striding purposefully up to to the building where it was housed determined to talk about what I was going through, only to walk right past the center and straight into the adjacent bathrooms. Looking back, I can say that “I should done things differently” or “I should’ve handled that better”. But I know that everything I’ve said and done this year have been my truest and most authentic reactions to life. One thing that I can say about going through all of these changes, is that rigid things break, and that's exactly what happened to me. I told this to myself when I was at my lowest of lows, yet I had still been the saddest I had ever been. I felt truly broken, but my GPA never plummeted. I still woke up every morning and went to class. No one sensed the tiniest bit of struggle in me, and I didn’t want them too. I hung on. I told one person about how awful I felt. And now I'm telling all of you. In the midst of all of this pain and strife, I didn’t read self-help books, do face masks or drink tea. I just hung on, because sometimes that all we can do when we are going through a million changes all at once. After a while, things become just a little less painful, you meet up with your best friend once a month and text every day. You become calloused. You’re tougher now. It’s for the better. Your pain dulls. Life goes on. The world turns. The Circle Line ferry always returns to the harbor on 11th avenue.