I have never been socially awkward like mainstream society pegs home-schooled children to be and I knew going into high school after being taught at home during my "middle school years" would be an adjustment. Everyone walked into their classes knowing old friends from school or the kids next door that had grown up beside them. But not me. I remember some of the faces in the hallway from elementary school and a few of the girls from the volleyball team, but I did not really know any of them. I walked into my freshman year of high school with no connections to my friends from middle school because they would not be attending Clayton High School. I had been home-schooled for the past three years.
My parents wondered how well I would handle it. I guess looking back on the change they would say I adapted quite nicely. My aunts and uncles worried that I had been "sheltered" and would not be able to handle the "public school environment" after being out of the system for so long. Now they know differently. My friends, and yes, as a home-schooled child I did have friends, gave me support and told me how well my social and outgoing personality would thrive being surrounded by other teenagers, and their support was proven correct.
During that first year I began branching out. I became a member of the high school volleyball team, a supporter of our athletes by joining the "Comet Crew," our pep club, an honors student, and an avid member and officer of our school's FFA chapter. Other students would constantly ask me which middle school I was from because they thought they would have remembered someone like me, and it was always fun for me to gauge their reactions when I told them I never went to middle school. Some students would turn their noses up at me like I had some sort of awful disease known as homeschoolery or I-didn't-go-to-middle-school-itis, while others were intrigued at the concept. Either way, I was going to have to go through the trials and tribulations of high school just like any other teenager. When I look back on at myself at fifteen on my very first day I know, the best way to look is forward with optimism and hope.
Being that "new kid in class" is not always as awful as the movies portrayed it to be. Homeschooling allowed me to grow as an independent young woman and gave me the leadership skills to live my life successfully. The obstacles of high school prepared me mentally and emotionally for the world outside of those four walls. While most teenagers have never been outside of their comfort zone, I know how to handle myself in changes in situations. SO when everyone's first day of college rolls around it will be just like my freshman year. New faces. New places. And new experiences waiting to happen.
