The bell rings signaling the end of another school day and the start to a weekend. Kids bustle past me like I don't exist. Which, to them, I probably don't. I'm just another obstacle in their way of freedom. Everything's different, but in a way, it's still just the same. That might sound deep and moving, but trust me, it's not supposed to be. I guess I'll chalk it up to the nostalgia flowing through me. I moved on, but the school didn't. It just keeps churning out kids every year. Did I even leave a mark?
I walk down to my favorite teacher's (when I was in high school, not now) room to say hello and creep around a bit. As I'm passing the commons—something I once ruled with an iron fist with my group of friends as seniors—I notice that there is a new group; different but equal is their distaste for this institution. I imagine they're planning parties for the weekend, movies to go see, or girls to hang out with. But it's all the same, something to take your mind off of the fact that you won't be a kid forever.
Someday that nerd is going to be their boss and those guys are going to hate their very existence.It's a startling revelation as you cross the stage to grab your diploma. All at once it hits you: Now I have to make something of myself. I have to be somebody. I have to worry about taxes and mortgages and rent and career choices and studies and will this ever end? It's a huge weight to drop on someone who has only been alive for one fourth of their life. Some of us can't take it and are stuck in a kind of a limbo for a couple of years before we stop and take control of our life. Those years are wasted on booze and drugs and fast food and stuff that doesn't matter. And it's a huge step for us when we finally realize it's time to move on and get serious.
All I hear is passing chatter and the slamming of lockers. The kids are glued to cell phone screens, sending and receiving text messages. One kid almost bumps into me, looking up right before we collide. He mumbles an apology and moves around me, eyes back down on his phone. I have to laugh at it. Don't worry, kid, those seven seconds you wasted looking at me and moving—you didn't get a text.
Always going, never straying far.But I understand where they're coming from. The importance being a part of something or someone. It makes them feel larger.
Some jocks push a nerd into a locker. That still happens? "Go Warriors!" I yell to them. They put their fists into the air. Someday that nerd is going to be their boss and those guys are going to hate their very existence. But for now they're the top dogs. Hold on to it, it doesn't last forever.
I get to room 123 and the door is wide open so I walk inside. There's a new face sitting behind the desk.
"Uhh, is Ms. Billings around?" I ask.
The lady looks up. She looks to be about two or three years older than me. Wow. Snatching them while they're young.
"No. She left last year. I took over for her."
She gives me a smile, and says her name is Stacy Ewing. I introduce myself and tell her I graduated in ‘08. We start up a conversation about being in high school. The highs and lows.
I check her ring finger, no wedding ring. Yes—just kidding. We end up talking for the better part of 45 minutes. She tells me that Ms. Billings grabbed a job at the University of Iowa because the pay was better—she is a single mom. She goes on and says how she loves teaching, shaping the young kids' minds, she puts it. I tell her about my job at Canberra Pharmaceuticals and my writing aspirations and dreams and for some reason I can't stop talking. She listens, attentively I might add.
When I get everything off my chest I get up to go and she thanks me. Thanks me? For what?
"For sticking around when you found out I wasn't who you were looking for. It was nice of you."
"No problem," I say, and leave.
As I exit the school I hear laughter and it reminds me of a time when we were full of promise and ambition. A time when we were invincible and nothing could bring us down.
Go Warriors.