High School: Miss Bashful

During my senior year of high school, I had senioritis. Big time. I was so ready to move on. I never liked school, and high school was no exception. In fact, it was actually the hardest of all the school years. Don't get me wrong. It wasn't all bad. I was a good student, I had good experiences, and I grew a lot. I was close to my family, and I enjoyed being in the band (as in, marching band...yeah...I'm that cool). But it was a very hard time for me. I hated the strict structure of everything. I was awkward and shy and peculiar. I wasn't close to very many people outside my family.  

My high school did senior superlatives. The senior class voted for a girl and guy to award the titles of "Best Smile", "Most Athletic", "Class Clown", etc. One of the categories was "Most Bashful". When I started high school, I vowed to myself that that would not be me. I hated being shy. I was given that label at a very young age. It was accurate-I was shy. But that wasn't the whole story. When I was younger, the perceived shyness was partly due to my being quiet and wanting to observe and warm up to a situation I was unfamiliar with. Sometimes I just didn't know what to say. When I got older, I really wanted to talk and have friends. I wanted to socialize. But by then, I had that label. Everyone knew me as shy. People didn't talk to me. Whenever I did say something, everyone would stare at me, shocked, and say, "She talks!" That's not exactly encouraging for someone who's trying to open up more. It brought a lot of the wrong kind of attention to me and made me want to crawl back in my shell. Sometimes I didn't say much because I couldn't hear very well. It's hard to join in a conversation when you're only catching bits and pieces of it. (More about the social awkwardness of hearing loss here.)

By the time that last year of high school rolled around, I had given up on my determination that I would not be picked as "Most Bashful". I figured it was probably inevitable. I soon found out that I was one of the three "finalists". Fantastic. So a fierce competition ensued. Just kidding. A quiet, subdued non-competitive wait ensued. When I got my ballot, I marked my vote for one of the other people on there, and turned it in. The votes were counted, and lo and behold, I was crowned as Miss Bashful. (No, I wasn't crowned, and I wasn't given the title of "Miss Bashful". But it's the closest I'll come to being a glamorous beauty queen, so just go with it.) I went outside with my male counterpart to get a yearbook photo taken, during which we were told we needed to smile more and stand closer together. The resulting picture was a very stereotypical view of two bashful people.

Despite what you might think from my description of this senior superlative experience, it really wasn't a huge, defining experience in my life. It was more amusing than anything. The month after I graduated high school, I moved to the other side of the country to attend college. I had a fresh start. I opened up. I made friends. Some people hardly believed me when I revealed the fun fact that I was voted "most bashful" girl of my senior class. I wasn't life-of-the-party outgoing, but I was definitely not so bashful. I still get a bit shy in certain situations now, but nothing like before.

When my older daughter was three years old, she was told she was shy because she was being quiet in a new situation. That made me really upset because she is usually quite social, but when someone gave her that label, she used it to retreat in situations she normally wouldn't. Let's be careful with labels! People tend to live up (or down) to labels and expectations.

During my last year of high school, the principal was talking to a bunch of seniors and said that we'll look back and realize that those high school years were the best years of our lives. I remember thinking, "Wow. What does that say about the rest of my life? If that's true, I must have a terrible life in front of me." Fortunately, I didn't take that personally, and I didn't believe it. And it's not true for me. I had a wonderful, albeit challenging, time in college. I have many dear friends from that time. I married the man I love. I have two sweet daughters. Things are still hard, but in very different ways. High school years weren't the best years of my life. Teenagers may have a hard time seeing a life past high school, but it's there. And it's promising. High school years are important and influential, but it doesn't have to define you or what the rest of your life will be like. Part of who I am is because of my high school experience, but most days, those years don't even cross my mind. It was ten years ago that I graduated high school, but it seems like high school was a different lifetime. Things are so different now, and I am so different now.