Girls everywhere sitting alone at lunch tables and not getting invited to parties are waiting to graduate. Why? Because they’re under the hopeful, misguided perception that when you graduate, you ascend into a utopia where people respect each others’ differences and there are no more mean girls. I’m here to tell you, the lie detector test determined that was a lie.

I’m not really sure when all this “it gets better” stuff happened. When you get out of high school and then college, or wherever it is that you choose to go, and enter the “real world” you will still, unfortunately, find yourself surrounded by petty high school kids.

Guys will still only want you to be yet another number for their body counts. Girls will still make fun of the way you dress or do your makeup. You will still be out of the loop on the cool kids’ party invites. You will eat lunch alone. A lot. People will still try to tear you down and make you feel small because in their underdeveloped minds, it makes them feel big. You will still have stupid fights with your friends/family/significant other, and super dramatic nights that you’ll want to forget about.  You will be judged for not having the right car, or for living with your parents way too far into adulthood, or not getting the right kind of job. Oh, and your body will still not be perfect, but it’ll come with fun little extras like BEING TIRED ALL THE TIME (you may not understand coffee addiction right now, but you will). You will realize that guys aren’t as romantic as they are in the movies and they have collectively mastered the disappearing act, and thus, you will continue to drive yourself around everywhere (but without your college friends to pitch in for gas), and you will pay for, like… everything.

Whew. Now that that’s over, we can get to the good part. The part where there’s still hope. Even though the drama you dealt with in high school and college doesn’t change. A couple things do. Your World and You.

In school, you are practically forced to live in this tiny bubble for years and years. You don’t really get to pick your friends. You spend at least 8 hours a day with a bunch of people that you didn’t get to select and are forced to operate within this sphere and fall into your prospective social group. If you grew up in a town like mine, by the time you hit 12th grade, you’ve been looking at the same people everyday for anywhere from 5-10 years. When you’re an adult, the people don’t change, but you get to change the people. You get to select who you hang out with and who you don’t and what you spend your time doing. If you want to join a bee farmers organization that you go to at 6am on Saturday mornings, nobody’s gonna know but your bee farmer friends. And it’s cool. Even if other people did make fun of it, what are they gonna do? Steal your lunch money? Who cares what they think?  By this time, you’ve gained a much better grasp on who you are as a person. Be patient with yourself and take your time. You’re going to make a ton of mistakes. It’s fine. Just learn your lessons and move on. The better your sense of identity is, the less impact all the above listed external situations have on you. Like honestly, the more crap you go through, the stronger/more immune you become, the less crap bothers you. Lather.Rinse. Repeat.

xoxo Kaisha