Sky

"Alright ladies!" I clap my hands. "That was great, but you still need more practice."

I'm allowed to skip Home Ec to train the middle school team while Stormie trains them on the days where I have important classes and can't skip anything. 

However, today is different, because after training, I'm leaving with Miss Willow to the assembly, where I'll be giving a speech about mental health. She told me there's going to be a lot of people there, possibly hundreds, and that scares me.

But for some reason, I'm less nervous to be in front of people who don't know me; maybe it's because if I mess up, I won't ever see them again, and that relaxes me. 

I've been working a lot on the speech to make it perfect, and I'm proud of how it turned out. I really think it would open people's eyes to a new perspective; I've never heard anyone say what I would say later today, and I'm excited to finally voice my thoughts and possibly make a change.

Because that's a goal of mine; making a positive change in the world. Even if it's small; like making a stranger smile, it just gives me a feeling of accomplishment. 

"Let's practice layups and rebounds." I say as I dribble the ball in my hand and instruct them to split into two rows, one side doing the layup and the other side doing a rebound if they didn't make it. 

Gotta get them ready in two weeks. No pressure, right?

"Dude, what if I freeze?" I exclaim nervously as I walk with Nat, Laura and Anna to my locker so I could put my bag there and grab my essentials for the short trip to the assembly court.

"You'll be fine." Nat reassures me.

"Yeah girl, your speech is awesome and you made some pretty strong points in it." 

"Just picture everyone naked." Laura shrugs. "That's what I do when I'm onstage."

"Should we be concerned?" I turn to the other two girls with furrowed eyebrows making us laugh.

Suddenly I feel someone poking my neck and I squeal loudly like a bunny because I'm very ticklish. I would know I sound like a bunny because I've heard my bunnies scream before.

RIP Snow and fluffy.

I turn around and glare at a laughing Tim, punching his arm, a couple laughs escaping my own lips.

"Why?"

"How else would I grab your attention?" He grins sheepishly, rubbing his arm that I punched.

I swear I'm not violent.

"Well, you could've called my name, tapped my shoulder-" I count on my fingers but get cut off by Nat.

"Slam her against her locker and kiss her-"

"No." He and I say simultaneously as my cheeks get red. "Just...no."

"Sure." She shrugs and I roll my eyes turning back to him.

"So why did you torture me?" I ask.

"The torture was for fun," He points a finger at me. "But I wanted to tell you that I'm coming with you to the assembly."

"Wait seriously?" I raise my eyebrows and smile, ignoring the girls sharing a knowing look. "How come?"

"Miss Willow wanted someone to film and take pictures, so I offered to come before Peter could."

"He wanted to go with her?" Anna narrows her eyes. "Why? To yell at her more?"

Tim shrugs. "That's why I took the job. Plus, I get to see Sky screw up on stage."

"Hey!" I glare at him but I can't help the smile on my face. "It won't be posted on the school website, right?"

"That's exactly why I'm coming to film you."

"Well, shit."

"Wait, Peter would see how awesome you are and then regret everything." Laura points out.

"Well what are we waiting for? Let's go!" I take Tim's hand and drag him to Miss Willow's class. "Bye, girls!"

"Miss Woods, you're on next." The stage manager told me and I nodded at him before turning to my teacher and best friend, who gave me encouraging grins.

"You got it, Skiwi." Tim tells me.

"Thanks, Timtam." I tease him and Miss Willow chuckles. I take a deep breath and walk over to the stage where I'm given a microphone. I then walk on stage, my eyes widening at the sight of about 300 people sitting in front of me.

"Good afternoon, everyone." I say nervously taking a breath. "My name is Sky Woods, and I represent the Norwood University model school."

"Mental health awareness is a great thing, however, we're doing it wrong. The United States is number one in the world in having mental illnesses. Almost half of the adults in the USA have some sort of a mental problem; specialists say it's because of the economy, decrease in jobs, and more. That is obviously true; especially with the amount of homeless people we have, they are the most at risk because they have it the worst.

But I'm not here to talk about adults, I'm here to talk about people my age; teenagers. If you've noticed, there's been a rise in the depression and anxiety rates among them, you might say social media is the problem; but it isn't, the problem is the person themselves. People naturally love to be included in the drama to be entertained, they naturally want to be known and loved and praised, and that causes insecurities. For example, I myself only have memes and puppies in my feed, so I'm not indulged in the drama between two celebrities and whatnot.

Teenagers nowadays would have a bad minute and they decide they're depressed and that they have the worst life ever. That doesn't mean that there aren't teens who genuinely have problems, but it's like depression and anxiety have become the new cool trend; it's the scream for attention because too much attention is being put on it, too much awareness can be just as bad as no awareness.

Have you noticed how every teen fiction book or movie follow the story of a broken character with a toxic family, or a medical issue, or an overall bad life? I get that you want to make those who do suffer feel like they're not alone, but this makes people with a healthy mind and lifestyle think they need to be depressed to live their life.

Pop culture romanticizes depression and so teens convince themselves that they are just so they could relate to the book they read. What happened to writing stories about healthy family relationships? Writing about the joy you feel when you're around friends? What happened to happiness?

I've been to Jordan when I was young, and there wasn't a fraction of what we have here; because in their books and overall culture, they comforted themselves with the thought of god, and I'm not going to make this religious, but my point is that they very rarely wrote about characters who suffer from mental illnesses, but they were taught about them in school. I remember reading a book about a woman who went through literal hell but kept standing up and pushed her way to her happily ever after.
They taught kids how to deal with hard situations like stress and other problems, and I suggest we start that too.

The way to help this situation isn't by posting about it on social media, it's not by including depressed characters in books, this only makes it all worse. How you can truly help is by making yourself available for your friends and family so they feel comfortable talking to you. You help by listening to someone rant about their bad day. You help by letting them know you're there for them. You help by educating yourself on the subject so you could keep an eye out for the people you love. That's how you raise awareness, not by turning everything in the world into a sob story.

Something I do to make myself feel better when I'm down is that every night before I sleep and every morning when I wake up, I count every little blessing I have. Like the fact that there is a roof over my head, the fact that I'm healthy, the fact that I go to school, the fact that I drank water that day...literally the tiniest things are what I'm thankful for, and this process really helps on viewing the world differently. I highly recommend it, because people really need to focus on their blessings rather than the bad parts.

In conclusion, my message to you all is that awareness starts with you."

I take a deep breath, staring out into the crowd. "Thank you for listening."

The crowd erupted in cheers and I stood there with a shocked face, not expecting this reaction at all.

About time I got that off my chest! I just hope I didn't mess up and say something wrong because I can't even remember what I said to them.

God I've waited to write this chapter for so long. Seriously though, what happened to writing characters who are okay? The story of broken good girl meets broken bad boy is way too overdone and that's all that gets attention.

That's actually why I'm writing this book. To include characters that are happy and actually avoid drama and assholes instead of falling for the bad boy and bla bla bla.

Seriously, I'm tired of those troupes in books, shows, and movies. They're mostly the same!!

Anyways, I really hope you enjoyed this chapter, and if you ever need to rant, I'm always here to listen. My PMs are open.