At one point, it was a life goal of mine to be the girl that sits on the sidelines at the football game, wearing the star quarterback’s letterman jacket.

She runs out to the field after the game, jumps in his arms, literally wins high school in a single fleeting moment…

When I realized that wasn’t going to happen, I settled into the aspiration of getting the chance to wear any one of the football players’ letterman jackets.
When I realized that too wasn’t going to happen for my acne-faced 5’11” taller-than-99%-of-the-guys-16 year old self, well..

I just bought my own.
                (And I had some legit patches on there too.)
                                As you can see, I was going to wear that letterman one way or another. 

It is crazy to look back and think about the amount of value I put into being the girlfriend, or even just the “exclusive jacket-wearer” of the star athlete. Or just having all the boys like me. Or just having ONE boy like me (haha). It’s crazy to think that at the time I was absolutely crushed that it was never me, but instead my friends. I hated it then, but OH how I am thankful for it now.

As useless of a skill set you might think this is, I learned a lot from my predicament as the #foreveralone girl in high school.

1. I avoided drama almost completely. While this may seem like a bit of an anomaly for a high-school girl, its true. And, sorry boys, but 99% of the time it’s you who are causing the drama within the already hormonal and crazy girl circle. My job was more of the “conflict moderator”, not the “conflict partaker”, which made for a stress-free and drama-free four years of high school.

2. I didn’t care how I came off to pretty much everyone. Since I gave up on the idea of dating anyone in high school, I had the chance to completely be myself, branch out, get a job, and not care about the high school dating scene. Which as an adult I can now conclude is a practically a complete joke.

3. I’m a kick-ass third wheel. I don’t usually cuss but there’s really no better terminology for this one. My friend Kelly even used to ask me to go on first dates with her, to help move the conversation along/make things less awkward. I simply cannot tell you how many times I have sat in a movie theater solo, next to a friend and her boyfriend. My girlfriends loved it, I’m sure the guys hated it, but hey, none of my friends got pregnant in high school. Just sayin’.

I truly believe that a lot of my success and ability to branch out was attributed to this time in my life as a single high-school girl. I never had any reason to be tied down, or slowed down in what it was that I wanted to accomplish later in life.

It blows my mind that there are people from my high school doing the same thing, working the same job, making the same mistakes, just shy of being 5 years out of high school.

I’m not judging, I’m just saying I couldn’t have stayed stagnant like that.

My experience in high-school gave me the chance to eventually find something great; to not be afraid to commit to important things, namely God/Andrew/my marriage/my family/my job/my education.

I really envied those girls who had high-school completely dial-ed in, and hated that I’d never be on the inside of things, in that winners circle.

THANK GOD I WASN’T.