On September 8th, I listened to Olivia Rodrigo's 'Guts' album for the first time mere minutes after it was released. There was one song that stood out amongst the rest; 'ballad of a homeschooled girl'. Catchy lyrics from a pop-punk teenage angst anthem couldn't stop running through my head for the next week. I drove my mom crazy as I played it non-stop in the car.
Why? Because it was my ballad. The ballad of a homeschooled girl.
'I stumbled over all my words/ I made it weird, I made it worse/ Each time I step outside/ It's social suicide', I kept singing over and over again until I had the entire song memorized.
For too long, I'd felt this strange isolation from my peers. As Olivia Rodrigo described it, 'I'm on the outside of the greatest inside joke'. Too many times to count, I'd stared blankly at my friends, my mind scrambling to decode some pop culture reference they'd made or a slang word used in passing that I couldn't decipher the meaning of.
Being homeschooled meant that despite my parents' best efforts, the social maturity you earn from going through elementary school and middle school was something I lacked. In 9th grade, I entered a normal school and it resulted in me having to use my six months there to catch up with the rest.
Trying to make friends at school felt like walking a tightrope. I would analyze every micro-detail of each social interaction because my friendships felt precarious. I wanted to stand out in the 'look how smart/talented/cool she is' way, not the 'she can't even talk to someone without her hands shaking' kind of way.
However, if I had a choice to go back in time and choose whether to be homeschooled or not... I would choose to be homeschooled.
It made me who I am. Sure, being (occasionally) socially awkward is sometimes a pain to deal with. But in the end, I am who I am because I was homeschooled. And I've grown to love myself. I'm not half-bad. I don't feel the need to know who I would be if I hadn't been homeschooled.
With this in mind, however, I speak to parents who are considering homeschooling their kid: maybe consider the downside of it all. I was lucky enough to have great parents who made sure I had a good education, and I'm now a few months away from getting my high school diploma while being fifteen, and now that I'm older, I have a great friend group that I love with my whole heart. However, not everyone is meant for homeschool.
My story, like any other, is laced with moments of pain, awkwardness, discomfort, and the feeling of being left out. But like most stories, it ended on a positive note. Because I pushed past the discomfort to the happiness of being unique. Would I recommend homeschooling? Not to everyone. Am I happy with my experience? Funnily enough, yes.