Things I wish I knew before I graduated from Highschool

First off, I want to say that I am ecstatic that I am done with highschool, I don't have any idea what kind of drugs the person was on who said "Highschool will be the best years of your life".
I mean, are you serious? For me, highschool was a series of humilations, "mean girl" drama, and heartaches.

I was not popular, I didn't have any money, I didn't play sports, I wasn't in any clubs, and my grades weren't anything special, I was the "ugly best friend" to the beautiful cheerleader, the friend they used to feel better about themselves. Most of my time in highschool, I spent at home, I was not invited out with my friends, and when I was, I was always the third wheel.

So now that I'm all done, I realize that all those things are so unimportant, and there are so many better things out there after highschool, it's deffinality not the end of anything, but the start of my real life.. but there are some things I wish I had known before :

1. Popularity is not important.
I said before that I was not popular, but my "best friend" was, and it seemed as if nothing in the world could be more important than popularity.. I mean, now that we're done with school, what will her popularity do for her? She might never see the people she was popular with ever ever again, she could have done more important things with her time besides partying with the "cool kids".


2. Don't take highschool romances too seriously.
During my sophomore year of highschool I met my first serious boyfriend, he was new to the school, and we had instantly clicked, and we started dating very soon after that.. I got caught up in having my first love, and I stopped caring about everything else, I spent every second of my time with him, thats when I lost most of my friends, I mostly only spent time with him and his friends, my grades suffered, I started to fail school, and I was always fighting with my parents.. and after a year of being with him, he left me for a girl that he knew for a week. Just like that. I made him my life, and he threw me away that fast like I was a used tissue.. When that happened, I broke down, I was depressed for months, I lost my friends because I avoided them when I first got with my boyfriend so they weren't there for me anymore and the friends I did have were his friends so they blew me off, too, so I had noone. I made the biggest mistake of them all, I made a boy into my life. Highschool romances should never be taken seriously, because MOST of the time they will not last, and they just lead to heartbreak, and ever since then, I have not dated and I will not date until I get into college.


3. Friendships WILL fade.
I learned during my junior year when my first boyfriend broke up with me, that friendships don't last forever, I became basically a loner because most of my friends moved on and began to avoid me, after that I really only had one or two friends until I graduated, and even then they were not close friends, we did not spend any time together outside of school, and now that were graduated, I haven't spoken to ANY of them since that night.. it just shows that the people you meet in highschool probably won't be around forever, so why try so hard to impress them? they'll drift apart eventually.


4. An education really IS important.
When I was a freshman I did not care about school at all, I was a slacker and I failed two classes, and I did the least amount of work possible in order to get by, and I honestly didn't care about how badly I was doing... It wasn't up until the end of my sophomore year that I started to get goals, and started to work hard... and because of my actions, I was not accepted into a good college, I will have to go to community college AND take extra classes in order to get myself in the direction I now want to go in..



Question for the comments :
Is there anything you wish you knew in highschool or would change about your current highschool experience if you could?