SCHOOLS: So thankful for my wolf pack at Burchell

One of the core values at Burchell High School is relationships.

When I was a freshman, I was riddled with anxiety and puzzled with depression. Like most teenagers, I didn’t have a safe or pleasant outlet. I just pushed it all down.

At first, I was scared to come to Burchell, and not because of it’s reputation of being a place for pregnant teenagers and drug addicts, but because I was scared of my sister’s premonitions, which where I was going to end up in a gang and addicted to drugs. But my mom was confident about me going to Burchell, mostly because she knew the staff would take care of me. I was shy, and I had a problem with authority, not rebelling against it but letting people know what I am not a child.

That year, I was enrolled in physical science my freshmen year. Everyone was crammed together because they refused to sit next to someone who they didn’t know. I hoped that God would bless me with the audacity to be bold enough to sit by a stranger. But I awkwardly sat in the middle of the room, feeling like I was stranded on an island even the Captain Cook extroverts wouldn’t dare to venture to.

We went around the room, awkwardly staring at each other and revealing the most basic information about ourselves. That was until a girl decked out in band merchandise said that she liked a website that I most frequented. At lunch I hunted them down, in the middle of chaos and lunch trays, and asked them to sit with me. We hid behind the librarian’s desk and talked about nerdy things. That was the first year I met my best friend Cathrynn. We’re still friends to this day, two years later, which doesn’t seem like a shock, but it is because high school can change everything in the blink of an eye.

The rest of the year was spent between my advisor, LeAnn’s classroom and the school nurse, Diane’s office. Both of them are amazingly sympathetic people and are probably angels in disguise. Anything that I needed to be changed about my schedule they accommodated basically with no hesitation. To this day I still credit them for allowing me to reach my potential here and out in the work force.

After my first year of high school was over, everything had changed about me and I considered myself to be a better person than before. Most everything that I had once worried about, I forgot. I laughed and talked loudly and unapologetically.

Sophomore year brought a lot of love, even if they came in between blows of depression and grieving. I made my first best friend that wasn’t made through the power of the Internet, Cathrynn. When I went through my break up with my first, and only, boyfriend, she was there. We plan on moving to Washington and living together once I’m done with school. The most amazing thing about Burchell’s Relationship Core Value? The whole school is there for each other when pain comes crashing over us. When we lost two of our students in the early months of 2016, everyone had forgotten their former beefs and just loved each other. In my opinion, Burchell thrives on having healthy relationships. I mean, it is one of our core values.