#hell school anecdotes

I graduated eighth grade tonight.

I have a number of mixed feelings about this. I feel lightheaded and dizzy and high and I have a headache and my hands are trembling and the drying tears are making my face cold (my makeup survived, surprisingly) and I feel sort of numb and abuzz and alive and dead all at the same time.

It’s a weird feeling.

Doing away -- not entirely, of course -- with the old and ushering in the new. The end of an era, the beginning of a new chapter.

Tonight marked the hand of time putting the final paragraphs in part one of our lives before turning the page for a brief summer interlude and then the inception of part two.

Tonight I laughed, I cried (quite a lot), I cringed (there were many moments worth wincing about), I remembered, i looked ahead.

I laughed when my friends cheered and one of them looked at me rather gravely as I made my way up to the stage, almost as if I was heading off to the executioner.

I cried when photos of me and my friends were displayed in a slideshow, photos of us of all ages; birthday parties to music contests to awards to ... well ...

The photos that broke me.

The candids, the selfies, the poses, the everything from our trip to DC. It made me realize that I might never see some of these people again. I won’t have the common luxury of seeing the people that make me so happy every day anymore.

There are so many things I take for granted that I know i’ll miss come August.

The nose boops (Whump!), the gentle (not really) taps on the head when we pass each other in the halls, the easy smiles, the chatter, the feeling of having someone who just knows. And all of that ends tonight.

There was one thing my former art teacher said in his speech tonight that stuck with me:

“Be a good storyteller. Cherish your memories, because no one else can take them away from you.”

May we all be the tellers of our own stories and treasure the experiences, the memories, the nostalgia, the stuff that makes us us.

What lead us to who we are today.

I leave you with a quote by (surprise surprise) Lin-Manuel Miranda:

(@dolphinsarefratboys, @sapiosexualeloise, @temperamentalshorty​)

I know it’s not here yet, but here is a preemptive goodbye to everyone I will have to leave come graduation. I would not be who I am today without you guys, so thank you all.

I’ve already said goodbye to M. You moved to D.C. a year ago, and this year has been rough without you, but you’re still with me, I suppose. I’ve known you nine years, been with you eight. I miss your smile, your jokes, your hair that always smelled so lovely, the beautiful ringlets that floofed out past your shoulders.

Next comes B. Beautiful, stubborn, and fiercely loyal. I have known you nine years, and they’ve gone by so fast. I knew you when you first dyed your hair pink, and watched the platinum fade to brown. It’s a miracle we’ve stayed friends, you a Gryffindor, me a Slytherin, you an Aries, me a Capricorn, you Jefferson, me Hamilton, but somehow, somehow, we’ve made it. We’ve done it, and soon, we will move on.

And how about J? My first crush, although you’re now a pansexual boy and I’m a genderfluid mess who doesn't know what the hell they’re doing. I would be remiss if I didn’t at least acknowledge the eight year period of time we’ve been acquaintances.

And now onto A. We met when I switched schools, but we weren’t really friends until second semester. We’ve known each other seven years. I’ve seen you grow, change, become such a wonderful activist, and chop all of your hair off, the very thing you advised me not to do. But I did it anyway, and I’m about to do it again.

Then there’s K. I think we met in fourth grade, when I -- quite creepily -- read over your shoulder to see what you were writing. Your journal was very pretty. Blue and silver hardback, cream pages, Celtic-esque design. The glasses of then are replaced by your contacts now, as you become more and more of a millennial stereotype, despite the fact that you are a Gen-Z.

Here’s where the timeline gets fuzzy. I think next is J the second. I initially talked to you in science because I thought you were K and wanted to continue reading your stories. I was frankly a little disappointed, but you made up for it by being smart and funny. And that fact that we fell in love a few years down the line doesn’t hinder things.

Next is G, I think. I remember you told me you thought I was a popular girl when you first saw me because of my wavy hair and earrings that I rarely ever wear. You were scared of me, but eventually we talked because I came up and gave you a surprise hug. We spent a long time watching you pat your sweater on your iPad screen and staring in awe at the amount of dust that fell out of it before you cleaned the slate and batted your sweater again.

And then E. I owe the world to you, I think. You made me realize I wasn’t straight and then we dated, but never seriously and it eventually fell apart because of societal pressures. I sometimes still wonder what might’ve happened had we not given in so soon. But still, your compassion and kindness and realism mean everything to me.

The jokes, the looks, the highs, the lows, the comings and goings will be with me forever. I don’t know if anyone can ever replace you.

These words, of course, are not enough to fully capture my love and appreciation for all of you. I will miss you dearly, and I hope you know that.

All the love I can muster,

My youth is slipping away faster than I can process, like water through a sieve, like silk through my outstretched fingers.

Obviously, there’s nothing I can do about it, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

It feels like my friends are miles ahead of me. Most know the people at their respective high schools pretty well, and most are going to the same high school. Two are presently engaged in a beautiful relationship, and will soon be able to call themselves “high school sweethearts.”

Sometimes I want to feel jealous, but then I remember I’ve got this whole wonderful life ahead of me to explore and grow and change and settle and become the person I will be. I’ll have time to live out my dream of that studio apartment in New York, and if I don’t, I’m sure it’s because something else will have come along.

Warning: the following is a very Slytherin statement and will sound kind of conceited.

Why rush on relationships and personal connections when you’ve got so much time for that and so little for bettering yourself? So little for learning? So little time to leave your mark on the world?

Because your chance to make an impact could be gone tomorrow. Life is full of surprises. Life is also full of tragedies, and you never know what’s coming your way.

Your time will come. Opportunity will knock.

I’m convinced time doesn’t quite work correctly in math classrooms. A liminal space, if you will, but one present in every learning institution across the globe. Referring back to @temperamentalshorty’s post about time and how time seems to speed up when one does something multiple times in a similar manner, I feel that applies to everything except math classrooms.

I used to be able to look at the clock consistently about 90 percent of the way through the class. Now, I get the same feeling in my gut, look up, and see I have 45 minutes left.

Also, there was the whole thing about the world maybe ending today.

We’re still alive so far. And if this is our last day alive, I’m not sure why I’m spending it talking about my theories concerning the distortion of time and space in schools, but I digress.

Happy maybe apocalypse. Only one hour and 27 minutes to go.

Every year, my friend @sapiosexualeloise throws an end-of-the-school-year party. More often than not, I end up thoroughly doused in water (thanks to her brothers, their friends, a kiddie pool, and a large arsenal of water guns), slightly sick to my stomach (overdosing on cotton candy -- they have a machine -- and the sticky sticky humidity), a little depressed (hot weather makes me super sad and anxious, maybe I’ll do a post on that later), and a little lighthearted.

The evening, although tinged with melancholy, is usually quite enjoyable. I get to converse with classmates whom I only see at school, I get to nearly break my face (among other parts of me) while creating mayhem in a rented -- and usually sopping wet -- bounce house, and I get to chill with friends.

This year, the mood was significantly less cheerful.

Oh, a lot of my classmates came, and the weather was mostly enjoyable (a pretty intense thunderstorm rolled in just as things were winding down), and Steven Universe songs blared through a speaker system, and the food was tasty as ever (Except for when I nearly set my hotdog on fire. I’m a functioning human.).

But there was just something about it that made me incredibly sad, and it was probably a combination of these things.

For one, most of the people crowing around her very nice backyard were people I’ll never see again. 90% of them aren’t going to my high school, and the ones that are are people I don’t particularly enjoy being around. The weight of that realization certainly played into my mildly depressive state that evening, I’m sure.

The hot weather didn’t help either. As I’ve already mentioned, summers and warm conditions in general make me somewhat despondent, even if I’m having an otherwise great day. And this day was one of the hottest and muggiest days we’d had in weeks. The air was heavy and thick and weighed down my lungs. It felt like I was breathing in soup. The water guns only added to that effect.

But the highlight -- and by that I mean the only not entirely depressive part of the evening -- was when @sapiosexualeloise, @temperamentalshorty, @dolphinsarefratboys  and a few others retreated into the garage. One of them laid out some blankets, brought in a bluetooth speaker, gathered up cups of lemonade, and spread out a deck of cards.

Judging by the title of this post, you know what happened next.

We played all manner of card games, but mostly BS and that slap game that I never learned the name of. I was really bad at both of them, and it was more muggy but less warm, and the blankets were covered in pet fur, and I was sneezing, and the music wasn’t always great, but I had a good time.