While my first year of highschool has probably been the best time of my life, I’ve also realized that I really need to learn how to manage my time better.

I’ve made a lot of new friends and learned so many valuable lessons, which has been great.  However, I’ve also realized I really only hang out with the people that I’m currently in an extracurricular because I rarely have time for anyone or anything else.

For example, lately I’ve barely seen someone that I’ve known since kindergarten because I don’t do cross country anymore. This surprised me and has been harder than I thought.

This leads me to another thing, high school is great in the fact that you have so many great activities to do with so many great teachers that run them, but as I joined maybe too many things, all the things I really wanted to try, I started slipping. 

The first time I struggled this year was probably the beginning of September. I was in cross country, SPUB, drumline, was freshman class president, had actual school work to do, and I was trying to still have a healthy social life. I would have to miss cross country practice because I’d be working on class board for Student Council… and once I was done with the board, I started working on the homecoming banner. The drumline met every Friday morning, which also happened to be the mornings of StuCo meetings. In fact, I didn’t end up going to my first StuCo meeting until October. That first week back, I had almost no idea what I was going on.

Then came the musical auditions. I missed two cross country practices to go to the auditions. I ended up getting the lead, which would soon make my free time non-existent. However, I was still trying to juggle all of these activities. 

Finally, I decided to quit cross country. When I emailed the coach, he was really understanding, and told me something that I’ll probably hold with me for the rest of high school. 

I know that quitting was the right decision, but for that next week, I really missed going to practice everyday. I met so many people during the season, and I barely saw them after I quit. It almost made that whole month feel wasted. 

The hardest part was probably my teammates asking me why I quit. I always felt like I had let them down somehow, even though I quit for my own mental health. I know that my own mental health is important, but I’m always afraid that I’ll disappoint everyone. 

Despite all that has happened this year, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I learned a valuable lesson about time management from this whole ordeal. I also learned that you can constantly be improving your life, and that I’m my number one priority. The whole world does not rest on my shoulders.