when i hit my 20s i started to feel 'guilty' about not having a core friendship group from school. this arbitrary measure of whether you 'did school' well enough.

the more i unpack the things adolescence taught me, the more i accept that schooling is its own complexity + coming-of-age was a whole other lifetime.

it's funny, in the context of working w/ children + young ppl, i completely centre their experiences of change inside and out of the education system + all the things that both limit and stimulate healthy growth, but didn't apply the same grace to my child-to-teenaged self.

often the schooling experience outside of its educational value is shouldered off as a blip &/or rite of passage alongside learning the curriculum, but these are some of the most vital years of our lives. this is where we start to really look at + analyse ourselves & each other.

it took a long time for me to be comfortable in calling my schooling experience traumatic. it sounded too abrasive. too overdramatic. then i step into the therapeutic space & draw parallels btwn the issues i'm dealing with now and the genesis of these things in the playground.

we're in some sort of schooling system ages 5-16, then another 5 years after that if you choose to. that's most of our vital years spent within the education system and everything it brings. i really don't think it's spoken about enough outside of youth work spaces.

i love my friends. sometimes i feel like i have none because of this arbitrary measure, or because it took me a lot longer to learn how to create friendships. but honestly, it's ok to not have had this in school, and esp. if you had a traumatic schooling experience.