DRAFT: Coming of Age

                People have to grow up and change their attitude on things. When you are coming of age it could just happen out of nowhere, maybe even playing a sport or talking to someone, you never really know. There also comes a time when people live up to that; become adults and be mature towards things. Being mature means to be fully grown, being in high school you can’t be acting immature because you will either fall back on assignments or not even listen to the teacher and fail your tests.

            It’s hard being a teenager in the 20^th century. Teens are just trying to fit in; high school is a time when some people try to find themselves. Being in a public school and being a Christian is pretty hard. Public school is where you’re distracted by our phones and friends. At church, I would cut myself off from the other people; I just thought I wasn’t good enough for them, like I wasn’t Godly enough. So I turned out to be that just hangs with her sister. It’s hard to make long lasting friends, I would try to make more friends but I would be too shy to keep the conversation going. I thought I was going to be that girl forever, or however long I stayed at that church.

            Youth camp was coming up, the camp everyone was waiting for. The day before the camp I told myself,” you have to at least meet someone new and you will have an awesome spring break.” SO the day came, the day I walked on that camp; my heart beating, my palms getting sweaty, and re-saying what I told myself the day before. I didn’t know what to expect, was I going to have a new friend or just be the same person I was. As the day was passing by, we had to choose our groups, at first some people from my church pulled me into their group but then they switched me with another girl. I was left with the people that nobody wanted or they got kicked out because their friend’s group had too many people. That night I was thinking, did my friends/acquaintances really not want me but thin I thought God probably did this to me to tell me that you don’t need friends to survive, in life you can’t always count on them.

            The next day I made a friend and talked about all our lessons and devotions throughout the day. There was one girl that had trouble with high school, and I just simply told her what I learned from the first night. My whole attitude towards things totally changed after the camp, I began to do things without help, and had self confidence. The next week I went to church I felt like I was friendlier and can communicate with people better. It just felt like I was a whole different person at the time, instead of being the girl that hangs with her sister, I turned out to be friendlier and mature. By just being left alone I learned a life lesson from it and I got to understand myself so much better.

            I was beginning to be an individual; I didn’t have to count on anyone to be there for me when I seem to fail. Everyone has a way of finding themselves or “Coming of Age.” Camp just seemed to fit for me, that’s where I had to mature up and realize that I’m in high school you can’t count on your friends on everything. Be the person that can be the leader not the one that follows.