It was a school of joy but also fear, not because I feared my classes, rather who I would see in them. The hallways told stories as I walked through them filled with obnoxiously loud kids who seemed like a mirror of my former self. Retired middle schoolers excited for their future to begin with the understanding of a naive 3-year-old. It is not like I had enormous amounts of comprehension or wisdom, but high school teaches you things. The courtyard was dark and stormy, but my day was bright with a clear clean future to start over with, I walked into the main building hoping to see familiar faces, and familiar faces I was granted. My neighbor, a sophomore, was in my first period and soon we made other companions. Every conversation had an undertone that these would be the last ones I would ever have in these rooms. My last first day.
The bell rang with “Life is a Highway” by the Rascal Flatts and the room descended into chatter with friends reuniting, ice breaker questions, and schedule changes. My life was in my hands, and I could see the top of the mountain that I was climbing. On May 24th I would be able to look out on 12 long years of school and say with a sigh, “Wow,” but my path to my last year in grade school had just begun. First period went by with a breeze and soon it was time for second period. I walked in, spotting my friends and excitedly sitting down knowing it was a horrible decision that we were all in there together. We fed off each other’s excitement breeding chaos, but it was a masterpiece of laughter. We wrote, we talked, we laughed, and I knew it quite literally could not get better than this.
As second period ended, I headed to the lunchroom rejoining my friend from first period. We sat close to the door by the humanities to make it easy to book it out once lunch ended. We ate and spoke about our first days seeing that we were halfway to the end, almost there. There were no speed bumps and nothing I could have been worried about but, when the bell rang, I walked to my third period with a twist in my stomach. A twist like a knotted necklace not wanting to untangle. I must have sensed my obstacles, or maybe everything was going so well that I got suspicious so as not to let anything creep up on me.
Again I never feared my classes, I knew they would all be fine, I feared rather, the people I would see. As I walked in the door there it stood, my obstacle. I looked and so did he, though I wished so much that he would not look at me. I wished so much that 6 months of history could be cut out like a tumor and thrown away never to be seen again so he would not have had even a reason to glance my way. I looked only once and that was all I needed to know that he would not be allowed to win. I powered through the class showing myself that he really did not matter in the grand scheme of things, I did, and I should be the only thing I was worried about today.
The bell rang once more and off I was to my fourth period, economics. My friends were there and so was I and that is all that mattered. I cannot remember what we did in fourth period to be honest, but I remember the empowerment, relief and happiness I felt. The day was almost over, and I was amazed at how much I had learned, through school and through life. Falling does not mean you broke your leg, it just means you need someone to tell you to brush it off because if you stay under the rock, you will never get to experience those beautiful emotions that make your pedestal of wisdom.
