Enjoy your senior year

Second Place

Editorial/Column

Division 3

Enjoy your senior year

Kristin Shearer

Grade 12

E-Town ExPRESSion

Elizabethtown HS

Adviser: Michele Cekovsky Henry

Students have to deal with school, sports teams, and relationships so it can be tough not to let the stress of it all bring you down. But no one should ever let his anger and stress ruin his or her senior year of high school. This is precisely what I let happen to me. My frustration with everything that was going wrong in my life overwhelmed me and made me miserable for of much of my last year of high school.

It all started when I didn’t get along with my team’s new coach. I challenged her and tried everything to make her dislikes me as much as I disliked her, and I succeeded. I blamed her for everything negative in my life at the time. In fact, I let my anger build up so much that I finally became fed up and walked out of a practice. At first walking out felt liberating, but later that day I started to panic and worry about the repercussions of my actions. Most of all I worried about how my sports season would be affected.

I was afraid I would get kicked off the team for disrespecting the coach. But I got lucky. The worst thing was not being able to have a say in which events I participate in. I even received backlash from my peers. The rest of the season I was criticized by my teammates for attending my club team practices a lot more than my school team practices.

I decided the best way to deal with the ridicule would be to stop caring. I acted as thought the coach could do anything to me and it wouldn’t matter. This bad attitude ruined my season because I had no motivation whatsoever, and, unfortunately, the sport I compete in is mostly mental. I stopped trying in practice, and it was tough to motivate myself before an event without having a coach at my side to cheer me on.

Not only was I hurting myself, but I was hurting the ones who cared about me. Even my friendships were affected by my anger and frustration. I ended up having a falling out with one of my best friends, who was also one of my teammates. When I tried to patch things up later in the season, it was too late to say “sorry” and expect everything to be okay between us.

I made some pretty bad decisions without anticipating the consequences of my actions. I do not recommend ever walking out of a practice unless it is for a serious reason, not merely because you’re angry about something. I shouldn’t have let my frustration get the best of me and ruin most of my senior year.

The last year of high school is supposed to be a time you’ll never forget. I will never forget my senior year, but for all the wrong reasons.