High School Isn’t Over: But “Be More Chill” Can Help

Last week, I was told that someone I was working with, was saying negative things about me behind my back.

“That’s so high school”, my friend texted me. And I knew she was right. But it still hurt.

It feels terrible when you are being criticized. Feels even worse when you know it’s from someone smiling to your face and cursing you to your back. It feels indeed like high school.

You want the “Mean Girls” part of your life to be over as soon as possible and the anxiety talked about openly in “Dear Evan Hansen” to subside as you grow older and more self-confident.

But the truth of the matter is, high school cattiness never really goes away. We all fall into our younger selves and bitch about our friends, our co-workers, our spouses. We don’t mean to. We strive to be classy. We want to go “high” when others go “low”. But it often seems impossible. We have moments when the insecure and angry 15-year-old version of ourselves pops out and makes us feel less than.

I first saw “Be More Chill” back in the fall with my daughter for her birthday. She was turning 15 and this was her musical of choice. When I experienced the show then, it was through her eyes. My kid not only understood this show, she was part of this massive group of young people that just got it…