The Jealousy Bug >:[

Lately, I have been struggling immensely with this irritating little insect.  There are a variety of things that spark it's awakening within me, and I have been really frustrated because of it, which is not fun lemme tell ya.

As a child, I was very well-protected. Too protected in my opinion.  My mom wanted me to be safe from everything that could possibly damage my innocence, whether it be something as insignificant as Disney movies, or something as drastic as bullying or even cuss words.  I grew up being home schooled - unintentionally taught to pretty much fear the outside world.  I was told that public school was full of kids who would pick on me, call me names, cuss around me, and all other sorts of true, but slightly exaggerated things.  Granted, I know my mom was only trying to do what she thought was best for me, but as you'll see, it wasn't the best idea.

Home school became a place where I could not only get in trouble for bad grades or talking or messing around in class, I could also get in trouble and grounded or punished as a kid at home at the same time.  Mom as my teacher and my parent gave her a feel of having far too much authority, making me want to rebel a lot more than normal kids my age.  Hearing the amazing stories of great fun that my friends and neighbors had in their schools made me wonder whether or not my mom was telling the truth about public schools and everything else.  I wanted to experience it all for myself, but my fear of the possibility that the outside was as cruel as it had be portrayed got to me, keeping me at bay.

Then came the divorce.  My world changed from money to no money, great home to living with others in a place that wasn't truly my own home, friends to no friends.  The change from urban to rural was cool at first, but eventually, being the social person that I am, the isolation of being home schooled out on a farm started to get to me.  I had no friends, and I hadn't experienced the world that most other kids my age had.  They had been going to school with people they had met in kindergarten, and here I was without a single friend, home schooled in a farm basement.  Don't get me wrong, I loved that basement, but it all began to get to me...

I wondered what I had been missing all my life.  My mom announced it was finally too expensive for me to continue home school since she had to return to school as a result of the divorce so that she could try to get a decent job.  I was excited, but that evil fear of anything that wasn't familiar always has haunted me.  Going through high school, I have to say that those were the best years of my life.  I met hundreds of people, made at least a hundred friends, and found romance as well, which was pretty darn new to me haha.

Looking back though and hearing the stories my friends have of how they all grew up together and had all these awesome and hilarious experiences together as classmates and friends, I can't help but wonder what my life would have been like had I been placed in public school earlier in life.  Where would I be today?

This is where the jealousy bug comes into play.  I hear their stories, I hear about all the great times they shared, I realize that I never had a very good chance to play any sports or instruments.  They seemed to have so much more freedom in life in general than I did.  Why did my life have to be so different? Why couldn't it have just been normal?

I'll always wish that I could've been in a real school sooner than when I did end up starting, but I'm trying to learn to be more thankful for what I did gain from home school: a good starting education, less of an emotional traumatic experience all the times we moved, and other such things.  It is tough, however, to not wish that I had had the life of my friends.  All I can say now is that I am doing my absolute best to look to the future rather than the past.  Leaving the past behind is the first step to having a great future.