The Children's Place

XS girl’s shirt…………………………………………………………………….………$7.99

Girl’s sequin shoes…………………………………………………………………..….$24.50

Kindergarten…………………………………………….…….…..The security of my parents. 

XS girls dress…………………………………………………………………….……..$19.99

Middle school………………………………………………………………….….Imagination

S junior shorts………………………………………………………..………………....$15.89

Puberty……………………………………………………...….…The unawareness of my weight. 

The period of time when I didn’t compare myself to others. The blissfulness of when I didn’t care what I looked like, how popular I was, or if my stomach was flat. The cost of becoming a woman sometimes outweighs the positives. Many people don’t mention how hard it is on a young girl's mental health to watch her body and many aspects of her life change rapidly. I became more emotional, oftentimes sad more than anything, the highs were high but the lows were lower than ever before. I remember one day in middle school, a day that I felt particularly fat, when I got home, stared at myself in the mirror, and cried. There was no provoking comment or specific incident that made me hate my body, I just did. I never had issues with confidence or even thought about my body before puberty. 

S women jeans……………………………………………………..……………….….$52.78

Friend groups……………………………………………………….Stability and confidence.

 Friend groups change and break up. Losing friends is the worst kind of heartbreak. You feel so alone. The lunchroom feels like a lion's den when your only friend is out sick. The lonesomeness of your room on a Friday night creates a pit in your stomach. The anger, sadness, and dreadfulness of it all boils over in the form of sobs. 

****On August 25, 2018, I cried because I felt like all my friends were leaving me behind. I thought that they were all just pretending to like me because I was about to switch schools and they needed to let me go. They showed no signs of this, but my mind just seemed to be working against me in every way possible. That same day my friends threw me a surprise party, and I suddenly felt on top of the world. Although puberty can cause you to lose imagination, a new and improved form of it may come to light…overthinking. 

M woman’s shirt………………………………………………………………………..$24.00

College…………………………………………………………………………..…….$27,560. 

You could lose hometown friends and family. The security of familiar surroundings, and develop anxiety and/or depression. Feeling the cost of everything left behind and the complete unknown of the future to come, students can possibly spiral. I am afraid that suddenly it will all be over, that there will be no going back to being a kid again, there will be no place to be a child. 

*All purchases are final. No returns or exchanges*