My 6th
High School Advice guest post is by Melissa Groeling who is the author of
Traffic Jam. Links to other High School
Advice guest posts can be found at the end of this post. Thank you to Melissa & all of the other
fabulous authors who have supported my Guest post vision.
Now
onto Melissa’s post:
High school.
The best years of your life?
Or the seventh circle of hell?
Good memories?
Or nothing more than days full of too
much homework, people you don’t like and waking up way too early?
High school has the capacity to be one
or all of the above. It’s the only place outside of a warzone where you can
rightfully deem yourself as nothing short of a freaking superhero for making it
out alive every day. And I’m not just talking about the long hours, the school
work, the detentions or even that one person who goes out of his or her way
every single lunch period to make your life a living hell. I’m talking about
the decisions you make. I’m talking about that decision-making ability that you
will eventually hone in order to be the person that you’ll be comfortable
being.
Sounds corny, right?
Okay, let me break it down for you.
I
had the dubious honor of going to two high schools. The first was a small was
in New Jersey and the second was a huge, regional school in Pennsylvania. The
differences, as you can imagine, were staggering. I lost all my friends when we
moved, the house I grew up in, the familiarity of everything that was mine. I
always thought I knew myself, my limits, my boundaries until I was swept away
in a school that had over 3,000 students.
In a word, it was madness.
I
lost who I was. I wasn’t sure of anything. I doubted myself because everything
was so different—the classes, the faces, the accents (that was definitely
something you couldn’t help but notice). My first year consisted of me being
pissed off, snobby and completely disagreeable. I couldn’t wait to get home
every day because my family, at least, was still familiar to me.
It all comes back to my first point: making
it out alive. And I’m not sure how I even managed it.
I’m not going to wrap this up in a
Hallmark movie moment and tell you I had some grand epiphany and suddenly
everything fell in place. It took well into my junior year before I felt
anything even remotely close to not-angry and not-awkward. By then, my temperament
had cooled and I knew what I had to do in order to excel enough to get my
diploma and get the hell away from there.
And when I did, it was bittersweet.
Even
though you don’t want it to be, high school becomes familiar to you like your
favorite jeans. When you leave it, you’re leaving it to try new and better
things.
High school doesn’t last forever. Some
people want it to but most people don’t. I was definitely one of those who
didn’t want it to. It’s painful, awkward and frustrating but it’s also a place
where you can start to unearth little bits of yourself. Eventually you’ll find
your way out.
When you do, don’t bother looking
back. Because forward is where the rest of your life is.
Without the homework.
About the Author: Melissa Groeling
graduated from Bloomsburg University with a degree in English. She lives, reads
and writes in the Philadelphia region and wherever else life happens to send
her. She is a hardcore New York Giants fan and loves chocolate. Traffic Jam is her first young adult
novel.
Traffic Jam Blurb: When you’re caught in traffic, you’ve got
nowhere to go…
Val Delton’s
life is spiraling and there’s nothing she can do to stop it. Her dad lost his
job, her mom works fourteen hour days to pay the bills and yet somehow there
are high-end shopping bags and an iPod in her older sister’s room. Naturally,
Val becomes suspicious but her sister’s lips are sealed. Then by accident, she
uncovers a dark, dangerous secret hidden behind her sister’s bright smiles and
cool indifference. Val has no idea how far and how deep the repercussions of her
sister’s secret will reach but she’ll do whatever it takes to keep her family safe.
Will she succeed before her sister’s secret destroys everyone she loves?
Interested
in reading??
Amazon,
Smashwords, or B&N
