Letter to Me

**I found this on my computer. Written in fall 2010 for my Adolescent Psychology class. Some interesting thoughts**

Letter to Me

Jason Kurz

            I feel a little bit like Brad Paisley writing this letter. In his song titled “Letter to Me,” he tried to give himself advice and support. The phrase from that song that I like the best is, “You’ve got so much up ahead, you’ll make new friends…these are nowhere near the best years of your life.”

Dear Me,

After this semester, there are definitely some things I wish I knew the importance of then that I do know now. The most important thing had to deal with my identity. It’s something that I have realized since I left high school, but during this class this semester, it opened my eyes even more. In high school, I really let my activities guide who I was. I just played the part of the jock, big-time high school athlete. Why? Because it was comfortable, and that’s what my fellow athletes did. When I was by myself, that’s not the person I was. Yes, sports were/are still one of the most important things in my life; it’s in my blood. But, the “jock” persona was not mine. I did this to increase my sociometric status, which our textbook defines as “the extent to which children and adolescents are liked or disliked by their peer group.” That was what was important to me at the time. But there were instances, such as in class and in the community, where I feel like I became what our book calls a “controversial child.” Many times, my peers got frustrated by my success in the classroom and things of that nature. Late in my senior year, I finally came to the realization that Brad Paisley talked about. When I go to college, I will make new friends. It will be my chance to re-identify myself as the person I want to become. The true self-identification process was helped by the fact that I was the only one from my graduating class to attend Northwest. And since I’ve gotten here, sociometric status has had no effect on me. That would’ve been helpful to realize in adolescence.

One other thing I wish I would’ve been better about was appreciating my mom more and arguing with her about the small things less. I always was and am very close to my entire family. Though we are really spread out, we remain a very tight-knit group. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always appreciated the blessing of my family. However, as an adolescent, I tended to take a poor approach with my mom on a lot of occasions. It usually started with my tone. And the majority of the time, our disagreements had nothing to do with anything important. I just got worked up and got into the frame of mind that I was embarrassed by my mom and that she was just clueless when it came to the issues I dealt with. A mixture of things helped me to realize that that wasn’t the way to go: maturation, being away from my parents, and more reinforcement gained from Chapter 8. Since I’ve come to college, I have been able to get a better grasp on how truly blessed I am to have a complete, close family. Friends and people I’ve met don’t always have that. The book talked about the struggles of adolescents in rough family situations, and it’s hard for me to fathom. The movie Bang, Bang, You’re Dead also helped me gain appreciation because his parents were, in my opinion, awful.

            Appreciate what you have, appreciate who you are, and keep your priorities in order.

God Bless,

Older (better looking) Me