Realizing I haven't even turned 17 and still have a lot of my life ahead of me there have been a few mistakes I've made that have haunted me.

First there is my performance academically. Before entering high school I was always the top performer in my class and often labelled as "the nerd". Which was something I didn't really mind since I saw that as recognition of my academic skill. I usually finished whatever work we were given during a lesson long before the others. I was given extra assignments resulting in me being far ahead of the others in many subjects. Especially math which I'd skipped a grade in.

However I was quite heavily bullied in 6th grade and that caused me to switch schools before starting 7th. Around this time I ended up having a math teacher who didn't seem to recognize/believe me when I said I was a year ahead in math. She ended up giving me a just above passing grade in math that year. Being given such an average grade in a subject I'd been excelling at ever since first entering grade school caused me to simply stop trying thinking it was futile. Thus leading me on a path starting to underperform which grade wise meant I went from top of the class to someone that was simply average or slightly above average. This isn't a regret I have as much anymore considering this is something I eventually managed to improve on. I got new teachers and in particular I had a social studies teacher which seemed to acknowledge my academic skill in a way no other teacher did sparking my interest in the subject. This year I have probably received my best grades since middle school. However my procrastination habit is still very apparent and often leads to situations where I end up regretting not putting more effort into something and still not quite meeting my full potential in a few subjects and leading to a lot of sleepless school nights. So I'm not entirely rid of it.

Secondly, there's something I don't really care about that much anymore but that plagued me throughout much of middle school and early high school. Not being more forward or bold basically. I made a lot of great friends during early middle school which I regret not trying to preserve contact with when switching schools especially since that could've helped prevent my scale into depression. More than anything though it especially applied towards the people I had a crush on.

I was a pretty quiet guy around people I didn't know and I was extremely shy around those I had crush on. On top of this I suffered from low self esteem in part due to me being pretty short compared to most guys my age due to entering puberty later than most. Which often lead me to thinking I didn't have a chance with many girls even in a few cases where I might've. It also didn't help that the very few times I had taken a chance it had ended in rejection. 

On to the story. There was one particular girl which I had a crush on in 5th grade which really started to develop in 6th grade when we all had to switch schools and we ended up going to the same one. This was around the time I started to become heavily bullied leading into me becoming depressed and my self esteem hitting a new low. I managed to become somewhat friendly with her but thinking of course I never stood a chance I never let on how I truly felt about her. I remember often having sort of a recurring inner struggle where I'd have nights that I constantly debated finally telling her how I felt and almost doing at a few points. In the end my own cowardice and insecurity always won over me though.

Looking back at it, there's probably a good chance that even if I told her nothing would've come out of it. Even if she was friendly towards me that probably didn't translate into her having feelings for me. Still that tiny possibility and not knowing plagued me which ended up in me confessing my feelings in 8th grade over facebook nearly two years after that happened. You can probably imagine how that ended especially with her already having a boyfriend at that point. I still wish I would've told her back then before the last semester ended. Not necessarily because it would've helped my chances but that way if I was rejected I could've left it behind me much earlier and more easily. In stead I was plagued by that tiny possibility for years after that.


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