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I am certainly not the Youtube fanatic that many my age are, but I have one very strong Youtube weakness, Jenna Marbles.
For those that are not familiar with this Youtuber, Jenna Mourey (who goes by Jenna Marbles on her Youtube channel) is a young woman who rose to internet popularity a few years back with her hilarious videos.
In her videos, she likes to poke fun at pop culture, play games, create hilarious hair and makeup tutorials and engage in playful shenanigans with her dogs.
She is smart, strong, goofy and never hesitant to speak her mind, make fun of herself, and be exactly who she is. Her personality, and downright goofy antics, embody everything I love about the internet.
Modeling your life after things or people you see on the internet is not always a great rule of thumb, but I think we could all learn a thing or two from Jenna Marbles.
That being said, her most recent video was quite unique. In the video, she opened up a couple of boxes of artifacts she had saved from her childhood up until now and shared them with her viewers. The boxes contained old notebooks, diaries, notes from middle school boyfriends, pictures and movie tickets amongst many other things.
At one point, she read parts of her diary from middle school and junior high in which she laments about her failed relationships and physical appearance. She stops shortly after realizing that the content of her diary is so sad.
This reflection leads to my favorite part of the video. She finishes reading and says “Baby Jenna, I am going to come down on a spaceship right now and tell you that everything is going to be fine.” In her own comical way she touches on something really interesting.
Her diary entries sounded eerily similar to my own at that same age. It got me thinking about what I (at the age of 21) might want to tell middle school Bridget if I had the chance.
Ultimately, there’s so much I could say, but I decided to come up with a short version of the things I would like to tell my past self. I am hoping a lot of you will relate to this.
To begin, don’t be too concerned with your appearance or relationships. I guess the only thing I would have to say about this is…it’s going to change. Your appearance will continue to evolve throughout your life and so will your friends.
As preteens and teenagers, we tend to get so hung up on our group of friends and the reality is that, in most cases, you will only stay in contact with few of those people down the road, if any.
I can count on one hand the amount of people from my elementary school that I still see or talk to on regular basis and that is completely ok. People will come in and out of your life at every stage. Sometimes you meet the people you want and sometimes you meet the people you need.
And the biggest lesson I’ve learned so far…It gets better (and then worse, then better, then worse, then better). I cannot count the moments in my life where I thought I absolutely would not make it and everything had fallen apart. Looking back on some of those events now, I realize how small they were.
I’ve spent a lot of time in my life waiting for things to get better or waiting to be happy. I used to view life as a mountain where you’re climbing towards the destination of complete happiness and fulfillment, but I’ve realized, only recently, that life is a complete rollercoaster.
In reflecting on this, I am reminded of a quote from one of my favorite TV shows as a preteen, One Tree Hill.
“People get lost when they think of happiness as a destination. We’re always thinking that someday we’ll be happy, you know, we’ll get that car, or that job, or that person in our lives that will “fix” everything. But happiness is a mood, and it’s a condition, not a destination. It’s like being tired, or hungry… it’s not permanent. It comes and goes, and that’s okay. And I feel like if people thought of it that way, they’d find happiness a lot more often.”
Bridget Goedke
Senior Viewpoints Editor
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