I have always hated the idea of kids. The thing that makes me most disgruntled about the “wonderful” process of parenthood, is that you’re stuck with it indefinitely. You are suddenly in charge of a young life, and every mistake you will make will impact your child forever.

It’s not a “let’s see how it goes” thing either. If you aren’t happy with your child, there’s no refund. You can’t turn it in for store credit at K-Mart. If you are really soulless enough to leave a child, you will never be free of it. You know that somewhere out there your lil’ child may be starving or abducted by a hobo because you didn’t have the guts to take care of it. 

Now, I realize that clubs and organizations are like that too. If responsibilities are equivalent to having children, I’m nearly as guilty as the oft-publicized “Octo-mom”.

I am currently in the school musical, Mock Trial, Academic Team, Drama Club, Vocal Ensemble, Youth Group and have a job at the Main Cup, as well as numerous ministries within my parent’s church.

Some of the obligations I have recently ended/quit are acting lessons at MET (very regretfully), Frederick Chamber Singers (not so regretfully), voice lessons (too expensive) and shows at MTF (extremely expensive). Each time I let go of a commitment I feel like a horrible jerk that lets people down.

But are my feelings justified? I have been quite reckless with my choices. Each time I enter an organization I am headstrong and have extremely high hopes. Images of state championships and great performances fill my head as I thoughtlessly commit myself to months of rehearsals, practices, meets and disappointments.

I started Mock Trial after hearing about it on the morning announcements. It sounded like fun. I have always felt bad that I decided not to be a lawyer, because I have several generations of lawyers in my family. I thought this would be a great way to channel my natural gift for law, as well as win the State Championship.

However, it did not work as well as I thought. I went to the first meeting with my friend, Belle, both of us dripping with ambition and motivation. We started to recruit people and started plotting out our questions for direct examination.

It took little more than a week for our plans to fall apart. Our recruitment was fruitless and our pace of work slowed to a halt. Then Belle stopped coming altogether, citing various other commitments. I should have known it might have been a bad idea to depend on her after hearing that she started Mock Trial primarily because she loved the movie Chicago.

I found myself unable to leave Mock Trial. I had put too much time into it and if one more person quit my team would not be able to compete. I started to work on questions again and made some minor progress.

It was not enough to get too far. We have lost every single trial this season, some of which in miserable landslides. Now I like Mock Trial, but it isn’t my main priority and my team is not excelling. So why do I keep on doing it? The truth is I feel like it’s my child; I can’t just abandon it.

Now that Academic Team and Mock Trial have come to a halt, I have founded the MHS Improv Troupe. I guess that like Octo-Mom, I just don’t learn.