The First Two Years of High School

Hey Jack, it’s you from the future. In this letter I will inform you on what happens freshamn and sophomore year. I know that getting a letter from the future is exciting and you are excited to see how you turn out but soon enough you will experience what I have experienced. Right now you are in the eighth grade year and you have heard that you are the only one going to odea. At the moment it seems fine but over time you will start to freak out more and more because you don’t want to lose the people that have been a constant in your life. You will fight and fight mom and dad to go to Kennedy, but they hold steadfast, and they commit to odea for you.

You are devastated because you think that all of your friends from holy rosary are going away, and you will never see you again.

THAT IS NOT THE CASE.

You will keep in contact with the people that you are the closest to at holy rosary and they will end up being key factors in your life.

When you get to O’Dea for the first time for freshamn football you will know no one, but you are great at making friends and you sit down at a table with a guy named Jude Santistevan, he will be important throughout your school career. When you sit down you introduce yourself and he introduces himself then twins come over to the table and sit down with you and Jude, their names are Jahi and Jomo Coker. Unfortunately, they will play a small but important role in school. You go to freshamn football and eventually you get injured and while injured at practice you meet a guy named Luke Harrell, he will be your first high school friend and you will have a great time with him. But then again at freshman football you’re complaining to Luke about your chinstrap and a guy named Griffin Wicks gives you advice and fixes your chin strap, you become good friends with Griffin because he lives in west Seattle too and takes the same bus home.

Freshman year goes by faster than you expect it, but near the end of the school year a virus will take the world by storm and because it does, you will go to e-school. But before e-school you will make the baseball team but unfortunately the season gets cut before a single game because of COVID-19, that virus that was going around. School then becomes easy, all you have to do is homework and attend, and you do really well in e-school.

Let me tell you that the summer of 2020 will be the best summer of your life. While everyone is suffering from the virus, you will be having a great time, the pandemic will shut down everything, restaurants, schools and even your baseball programs will be shut down due to the virus. It will be the first summer where you don’t have sports or camps going on and all you do is hangout with your friends, it is the absolute best life. You mostly hangout with Ben, but you guys do everything together, you will skim board, bike, swim, everything.

For your sophomore year, school is still online, and baseball hasn’t opened up yet. School starts at 8 and ends at 12, every day is a half day, and since you still don’t have baseball, you take advantage and hang out with friends during the week. But the pandemic dies down enough to start playing sports again and when it starts you will realize how much time it takes up and you will realize that the program is prying you away from your friends. You hadn't realized how much time baseball was taking up until you took a break, and you start to think about ending your baseball career. You start to think that your close friends will drift away and since you have no siblings, friends are important to you. Eventually you become depressed enough to try and kill yourself, thank God that doesn’t happen because life gets better.

You have had enough; you want your own life and not one that is surrounded by baseball. On the day of baseball tryouts, you wake up and confront dad, you say you don’t want to play baseball anymore. After you say that, dad comes up to your room and has a conversation about it, he says that you would have to get a job, and that he already paid Baden for the season. After the discussion, you can tell dad is disapointed, he will talk to you in little amounts throughout the week. A few days later, you join the tennis team. At first you are horrible because you try to play the proper way, but it doesn’t work out so you make your own play style. You find that you are good at the net.

The summer of sophomore year is the final part of this letter. First of all, your baseball career ends with you playing your final game in Spokane, and you actually make close friends with people on your team. Second, you will be spending a lot of time out of state, and you will have a great time. Third and final, you will somehow manage to strengthen the bonds between you and your friends, which seems impossible, but as of right now, they all get crazy strong.

Overall, your first two years of high school are something to remember and something to enjoy. You find yourself; you stand up for yourself, learn to trust yourself and strengthen the bonds with your friends. Jack, that’s the first two years of high school, the last two are better, but that’s for another letter. I want you to remember that you are living the dog days right now. ENJOY IT.

From, your future self, jack