Life as a Pre-teen Teenager

By Xander Barton, Williston, VT

 
Being a teenager is the beginning of a transition in life. It’s where I voice-crack way too much, get more socially awkward, and actually care if I make a fool of myself for laughs.

But it is so much more than that as well. There are some upsides, like once again, actually caring if I make a fool of myself. (It makes me really not want to remember what I was like in first grade.) But there are also some downsides, like getting insecure about myself in different things. But most of all, being a teenager is confusing. Why I think this is is because, for example, some things you might think are downsides, can actually be upsides, like sometimes you have to be who you are by making a fool of yourself, instead of caring what everyone else thinks.

But I think the main reason being a teenager is so confusing is that up until now, the world felt a lot simpler. Don’t get me wrong, we knew the world was not simple, but we don’t really start to feel that way until our teenage years. For me, I began to question if the close people in my life who are overall more astute than me, are actually right about some little things that I have heard them say and thought, I’m not sure if you’re right about this. This is all to say the teenage years are the pivotal point where everything begins to grow, whether your body or your understanding and the principles of life.

The teenage years are awkward and weird, and yet they are so important. It’s the start of everything about the world being almost black and white, to the world becoming more gray. Where some things that you are taught are bad, you start to have more understanding or sympathy for those who do things that are “wrong.” But that happens more in the adult years, so I’ve heard.

In conclusion, being a teenager is not easy for many reasons. But overall, it is a good thing that we have a time where we can have a slow-ish transition period for us to gain this level of understanding of our world, without rushing it too much.


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