As I stood in the bathroom stall with my pants around my ankles, I heard the voices of three prepubescent middle school boys enter. At first I was confused as I thought I was in the safety of my gender assigned bathroom, then I heard it, “Dude, I think there’s a girl in here.” I froze as I saw my thirteen years of life flash before my eyes. Panicked, I had no choice but to pull up my pants and make a run for it. When I arrived at my class in tears, my teacher did her best to console me through her muffled laughter. I was incredulous at how she could find something so life ruining, comical. Of course things eventually blew over, but not without copious amounts of sulking on my part.

As I’ve grown older I’ve come to realize my middle school experience is one giant punchline, the fact that I used to guard my involvement in Science Olympiad with the importance of my life or that every year my friends and I danced in the talent show when we we lacked both talent and semi-decent choreography. While I can look back on this time and laugh now, in the moment it seemed like every action I made would have catastrophic implications on my social standing.

After leaving the popularity thirsty pressure cooker that is middle school, my self consciousness began to lighten up but the embarrassing events that seem to curse me did not. From sneeze farting during one of the most intense moments of Rogue One in a large movie theater to fainting in front of the entire school at the Be Nice assembly freshman year, I’ve had no choice but to learn to be a good sport.

While I think that I’ve thoroughly proven I may not be the most qualified to tell you how to live your life, my advice would be not to take yourself so seriously. I’ve found that life is a lot more fun when you let others laugh with you and not just at you. Developing a good sense of humor is something that makes life easier and turns disastrous events into ways to connect with people. Soon enough, all of our memories from high school will become stories to look back on and laugh; the homework and tests we stressed about, the clothes that we thought were so cute, and of course all the embarrassing moments we experience.