[ American girls's life ] A teenage girl's tired life

My parents had a family gathering for my sixteenth birthday. My aunt and uncle – who live in the same town as we do – came, which made me really happy. I like them a lot. At the dinner table, my uncle made a comment about how busy and hectic-and stressful-things were in his office. “I’ve got so many projects going on,” he commented, adding “It’s a very busy time. Very stressful.”

“Sounds like my life!” I commented. “It’s really stressful, too.”

“Your life stressful,” he commented while chuckling, and then asked “What can possibly be stressful about your life?”

“Plenty!” I remarked.

“Oh, please!” he teased. “You don’t have to go to work every day, and you don’t have to deal with managing people, like I do.”

“Yes, I do,” I reminded him. “I go to work every day; it’s called school. And I deal with people every day, too. They’re called teachers and classmates.”

“Well, that’s different,” he said. “You don’t have the pressures of real-world things, like you don’t have to pay bills. You don’t have to worry about taxes. You don’t have to buy your own food, or cook it for that matter. I mean, what can possibly be stressful about going to school and hanging out with your friends? I’d love to have your life! I’d love being a carefree teenager again. I’d trade your positions any day.”

I couldn’t believe that my uncle thinks there’s no stress in my life-because I’m a teen! Gosh, you‘d think it were a thousand years since he’s been a teenager, because all my friends feel as I do, that being a teenager is a very stressful time of life. From the minute the alarm clock goes off in the morning, I’m on the run. The buzzer sounds and in a matter of what feels like seconds, I rush to take a shower, get dressed and eat breakfast, and all the while, my head is overwhelmed almost always a paper that’s due, or a test of some kind to face. Meeting dead-lines is a way of life. Always there are a million things to do, every day, and everything is so urgent. And I do “manage people”: I see six teachers (because I take six classes each day); there’s my counselor, the school principal and vice-principal, classmates, friends. While I don’t interact with the principal and vice-principal and counselor every day, on some days I do. But everyone else is in my life every hour, practically every minute.

 

When I get home from “work,” all I want to do is watch television and relax – which I often do, but it’s not like I get to be brain-dead when I do because I have some family chores I’m responsible for doing each day after school. Then, of course, I always have homework. After hours of studying for history tests, doing algebra problems and writing comparative essays – or whatever happens to be the night’s homework – I finally fall into bed, only to wake up and do it all again the next day.

 

So when our school had a “Shadow a Teen for a Day” project, you can bet that I asked my uncle to be my guest to go with me on every little minute of that day. I was pretty excited when he said, “Sure,” like it was going to be a great break for him not to have to be at his office for the day. I’m not exactly sure what he envisioned the day would be like, but when he showed up school that day - with his cell phone in hand “to return a few calls between classes” and with a few business papers “to read when there’s nothing else to do”-I knew he really didn’t have any clue what a day in my life was like-or his on that day!

My uncle loved sitting next to me in homeroom. He just beamed. He looked pretty cute, too, sitting there in his blue jeans, “Go Navy” sweatshirt and old sneakers. He looked a bit nerdy, but I didn’t tell him. I was happy he was there with me. And, of course, I knew the day would change his mind about my having an easy, carefree life.

 

I could tell by the beam on his face that my uncle also enjoyed my first-hour class, history. While he listened to the teacher’s lecture, he also thumbed through the book, really absorbed by some parts of what he saw there. But by the end of second hour, math, he was more somber. “Sure wished I’d paid a little more attention to math when I was in school,” he commented as we walked to my third-hour class. I felt a little lsot in that class today!“

By the end of third hour (SpanishⅡ), well, let’s just say my uncle looked pooped. It was only 11:30 A.M. when he announced, “I’ve got a throbbing headache.” At 1:30 A.M. he said to me, “You know, sitting this long and listening so much is tiring. I need to get up and walk around a bit. Too bad that’s not allowed in class.” Then while we were eating lunch in the cafeteria, my uncle asked, “Is the girl that’s looking at me and laughing, laughing at me? How can you tell? I mean, I hope she doesn’t think your uncle isn’t with it, you know, on top of things.”

“Relax, Uncle Bob,” I said. “Well, she did giggle when in math I had to work out the answer to a question by figuring it out on paper rather than in my head.” But if my uncle felt self-counsious then, he probably was embarrassed when in fifth-hour class the teacher called on him and asked him the name of the Secretary General of the United Nations, and he didn’t know the answer. Looking horrified, my uncle looked at me and whispered, “I should have known that! I feel dumb, especially with everyone watching me!” By sixth hour I could tell he’d just about had enough. Looking at his watch, he asked, “How much more of this is there? I’m hungry, tired and whipped!”

 

At the end of the school day, my uncle admitted that maybe life as a teen isn’t such a breeze at all. “This has been one of the longest and most stressful days I’ve had in a while,” he commented and then pleaded, “Can I go now?”

“Sure,” I told him. “I’m on my way to a job interview. I’m trying to get a part-time job at the store.

“I honestly don’t know how you manage,” he said.

“Thanks for coming, Uncle Bob,” I said to him. “And by the way, don’t forget to do the homework you’ve been assigned.”

“I’m leaving that to you!” he replied. “I’ve decided I’d rather have my job than yours!”

“Thought so!” I said, waving good-bye to him as he left.

So now my uncle knows that my life may resemble life in his office: intense and hurried-and a lot of work, not to mention that mine includes mounds of homework when I get home (and if I get the part-time job, there will be some work hours, too). Thanks to the “Shadow a Teen for a Day,” my uncle knows firsthand what real stress is like.