Terra Heatherly-Norton

4/4/15

Turning Point

I’ve had a fairly easy life; I generally get my way and don’t have to work very hard to do so. I always had a sense of control growing up my opinions were valid in family discussions and I knew how to handle conflict. I am always comfortable, creating a game plan of situations and easing myself into a cozy corner. But at the end of my freshman year I was un-enrolled from Ingraham high school and enrolled into Shorecrest in a completely different school district without any say in the matter. While I saw as the greatest injustice of the century at the time I now see it was being taken out of the comfort zone and not having the social buffers of my established friends that really upset me the most.

My dad had a nickname for me that is a running joke in my family, tall-dark-and-sullen. My face does not invite people in for conversation; no one stops me on the street and asks for a directions. By no fault of my own I have the resting face of a pessimistic old man so making friends especially in the uneasy setting of high school was a little difficult.  I had signed up for cheerleading my freshman year as a quick way to make a few friends but at Shorecrest there wasn’t time for a game plan. In the first two months of that year I watched my best friend move to Montana and my boyfriend at the time went to Turkey to travel abroad for the year, by October I was completely alone.

It sounds depressing, but the freedom I slowly found in this new solo existence was so freeing. I had always had two close girlfriends one guy friend and then a boyfriend of some sort, all through middle school and then my freshman year. I thought of these people as my safety net but really they were just restraints. Which so much time to myself I explored my interests, I discovered bands during long nights searching YouTube and went to a couple shows by myself starting wearing clothes I had always aspired to wear but convinced myself I would never pull off. There was no one around to judge me; the people at Shorecrest took me as I was like I had always been all leather jackets and angst.

While I was angry I began to understand why my mom had done this too me, after a particularly bad breakup the end of my freshman year and a few questionable friend choices my mom said she wanted to “create some space” and “give me some perspective”.

As I changed, I reflected back on what I had been doing in high school and it was all things I hated. The friends I had made the guys I had dated the activities I were involved in none of them made me happy. I came to the realization that I had been living for other people; while I didn’t realize it I forced myself constantly to suppress my wants for the sake of other people, making myself smaller to fit in a space they deemed acceptable. I took taking me out of my environment to truly understand what I had been doing. I found confidence I didn’t know I had been lacking and started to understand what it means to be self-aware.

Ultimately I returned to Ingraham for the junior and senior year of high school but I came back a different person. I dressed the way I wanted (which where a lot of short dresses and thigh highs at the time) with confidence and found that the acceptance came with the attitude. I didn’t feel the social pressures I did before and started openly stating I didn’t like to drink or particularly enjoy rap music. I didn’t feel obligated to compromise my happiness for the approval of others. In the small trashy world of north Seattle there is a social norm. Objectify women, smoke blunts, make money; I had always thought it was something to aspire to but I realized at Shorecrest that wasn’t what successful educated people who make a difference look like. That twenty years down the road they will be doing the same thing they were doing this week and I could be doing so much more.