A story of my life.

Someone calling in sick to work in order to sleep for their hour long shift.

Someone breakdancing to a boombox blasting Christmas music on the quad.

Someone crying because they got a free sandwich.

Someone walking into the lounge at 1 am with a huge stack of books, and the determination of someone who forgot a term paper.

Someone putting off writing their thesis because someone else needed math help and “logarithms are fun!”

Someone taking a lighter to a notebook as soon as they left the science building.

More than one flask being carried to class.

Someone literally giggle evilly when given a 6-pack of beer.

A freshman taking gen eds complaining about everyone else complaining about how hard finals are. (Note: the freshman may or may not have ever been seen again.)

Someone crossing campus at a run in slippers.

A nursing major explaining that finals are actually natural selection, and that she is the strongest and most adaptable and she was going to survive, while talking to herself.

A different nursing major looking very forlorn because she just ran out of wine.

Someone sleeping on a bench in the music building, with actual pillows and blankets and everything.

Sticky notes with swearwords written on them littered around the science building.

A group of students trying to one-up each other about how badly their juries had just gone.

Someone leaving for the library at 3 am, because there was free coffee there.

Someone flipping off the professor after being wished good luck on the final.

The same person realizing that they have an entire lifetime of that class ahead of them, because it’s their major.

Someone being questioned about how they wanted their funeral to look, after talking about the 8000 words they had due.

Just, so many people sprawled on floors because it’s easier to do that than anything else. So many.

The most genuine gratitude I’ve had directed at me possibly ever, because I gave someone a peanut butter cookie.

thats amore

when u swim in a creek and an eel bites ur cheek

As stated I had a huge crush on this guy and it was blood obvious to anyone involved - Tom included. He had already made it clear to me and others that he did not look for a relationship with anyone and this was confirmed by his friends, some of the girls told me that he just had a couple of short relationships during high school and that the girls had been the driving forces behind getting into said relations. Somehow I managed to push my feelings aside far enough to spend time with him as a friend, (God knows how a 17-yearold girl managed that) but I had my angsty, upset and jealous moments for sure…

And then, somehow, we started to spend more and more time together and on a friends Halloween party he actually asked me if I wanted to date him - as boyfriend/girlfriend. I was on cloud nine for sure and as happily in love as only a teenage girl can be. Until our group of friends found out. Their reaction was to “blame” me, saying I made Tom agree to date me, that it would never last more than a few months at best and then he would get bored with me as he had with the other girls and even so far as to once telling me to break up with him and move back home. I realized later that several of them must have had a crush on him at some point or another and then I showed up… Teenage girls can be brutal.

Anyway, most of those friendships crumbled as they tend to do, especially reinforced by the dislike from several members of the group. I got on with my life, school ended and I went through a couple of jobs before ending up as a manager at a local restaurant. I was working an evening shift when two of my old high school friends who had been very vocal about my unpopular relationship with Tom (lets call them Maddy and Ellie) walked in and seated themselves at one of my tables. It must have been at least 5 years since I last met them and even longer since we used to hang out together. I took their orders but they kept on looking at me, trying to figure out if and why I was familiar so I decided to help them out.

“Yeah, you know me. We used to hang out after school.”

Both of them shines up and smiles at me, that way you do when you meet people you have not seen in years or even thought about at all but still want to be pleasant to as to find out what they are up to now and if its interesting. And then Ellie goes

“Yes! That’s it! You’re Meenite! We used to be in the park all the time! And you used to date Tom!”

Oh, that glory, that wonderful glowing sensation of victory that you usually only find in the daydreams of a teenage mind - to have the privilege to be able to experience it for real.