Photo courtesy of Lifetouch

I’m horrible at receiving advice. My mom told me throughout high school that if I’m going to cherish my high school experience in the future, I have to get involved in a school activity. I didn’t listen until 11th grade. Joining The Pitch was a total accident, and being a part of the school newspaper was the last thing I was thinking about joining when I graduated middle school. Four years later, I’m going to college to study journalism.

Giving advice is easier for me to do. I’m not saying you should join The Pitch, but you should get involved in a school activity as soon as you can. Whether it was joining a team sport, drama, school clubs or band, just do something. Working alongside my friends has been a blast. I’ve met some amazing people I’ll never forget and I’ve been able to do things I never thought a high school student could do.

The hardest thing I did was open up about my issues with depression in our mental health magazine. I put details in that article that only my therapist knew. When I was writing and getting ready to reveal my issues I wanted it to be anonymous. But, I wanted to write the article because my path to recovery began when a friend opened up about his battle with depression. Nothing easy is done alone. I was terrified on distribution day, in that magazine I was confessing my vulnerability. I looked back on the piece and to be honest, it kinda sucks. I’m still grateful I wrote it. It was a big leap forward in improving my writing by sharing my mental health experience and hopefully encouraging others to seek help.

Thank you, Mrs. Borrelli, for leading this class, and thank you Pitch for letting me try out new creative avenues I never had access to before. I helped run a podcast! I wish my mom would stop telling people that.