Life Lesson #2

I've always been the type of person that tries to see the good in people, no matter what. If someone only showed me their negative traits, I would try really hard to find some positive ones. I refused to believe that they weren't more than what they were showing me. I believed this so hard that even if someone proved to me over and over again that they weren't good for me, that I would still give them more chances. I didn't like giving up on people. But I had to learn the hard way that sometimes, you have to take people at their word and realize that not every relationship that you have with someone is healthy.

Life Lesson #2: When someone shows you who they truly are, you gotta believe them. 

During my senior year of high school, someone new came into my life. We had a class or two together and I'd never met her before. But once she met me, she clung to me. It all happened so fast. One minute, I was just a classmate. The next minute, she was asking me to be her college roommate because we both wanted to attend the same college. Honestly, this freaked me out a bit but I gave her the benefit of the doubt because I'd just met her. I didn't want to pass judgment too quickly.

Not long after this, I discovered that many of my friends, and one in particular, absolutely hated this girl. They warned me to stay away from her and told me that she was a snake. At first, I just brushed it off. I barely knew the girl and had no intention of spending any time with her anyway. But this girl learned where I hung out and eventually made her way into my life. She wasn't my favorite person but I found myself constantly justifying her behavior or words. I convinced myself that even though she was pushy, clingy, bossy, judgmental and full of herself that she was a good person. I ignored all of my gut feelings.

I didn't have the guts to tell her that I didn't like her and didn't want to be her friend, so I just put up with it. She eventually came to think that we were best friends, even though I didn't feel the same way. My friends were angry that I was spending so much time with her and trying to force a friendship that I knew couldn't last. But I so desperately wanted to believe she was a better person than she was.

But a hard dose of reality hit me when I told her that I couldn't hang out with her one day because I wanted to be with my boyfriend and she turned on me. After that, I was given the cold shoulder and things got out of hand. She threatened my sister, talked badly about me in front of my mother, started spreading lies about me around the school. It got so out of hand that her boyfriend, who was my boyfriend's friend, didn't want to hang out with us anymore because he didn't want to be in the middle of it. So I learned that I should've heeded the warning signs. I should've walked away when I had the chance. It would've saved me a lot of wasted time and heartache.

But she never hid who she was. She was upfront and honest about that from the beginning. I let her mistreat me. I let her cause tension between me and my friends. I let her take my time away when I didn't want her to. All because I didn't listen when she told me who she was. We haven't spoken in years and we've both moved on with our lives. And it's all for the best. As much as I didn't enjoy this experience, I can't say that I fully regret it because it taught me a valuable lesson. I won't make that mistake again.

So please don't get pulled in like I did. Don't convince yourself that someone isn't who they say they are. If I had listened, things would've turned out a lot differently. But, all the same, I'm glad that I learned that lesson early in my life. It would've made things much more difficult had I learned it at a later point. All I can say is that now that I've learned it, it's a lesson that I hold onto. The only thing that I try to focus on now is knowing who I am and being true to that. People are complicated but that doesn't mean that they hide their true selves. Their true selves are out there in the open. We just have to open our eyes and let ourselves see them. Trust me, it'll help you a lot in the long run.

-Chelsea