Week Eleven Theme

Nothing has ever saddened me as much as seeing things being forgotten. Things I used to love; things I used to cherish... they go to waste. Perhaps dreams are apart of these things that are forgotten. What was it like for me to be a young girl in high school? How many dreams did I have then?
These hallways were once the ones I walked down as I went off to my next class. I once did so much growing in these hallways.

"So, drama club at 2:30 today, right?" I asked Felicia as we walked down the hallway; students bustling in and out of lockers, couples stopping to steal a kiss. 
"Right." Felicia said nodding, "Don't forget your script! Mrs. Perry doesn't have any extras today." 
We said goodbye and went our separate ways. I stopped to say hello to Laura and waved at my lab partner across the hall as Laura explained what she was doing for her birthday this year. 
I laughed with Laura and hugged my books close to my chest as we walked together towards our next class. 
"My mom doesn't want too many girls over, so I was thinking you, Felicia and maybe Asia?" 
I agreed and smiled, "Sounds perfect." 

The dim-lit hallways were easy for me to navigate; these hallways accompanied me through many of my growing experiences.
My eyes were now on locker 106. My old freshman locker. I opened it and looked on the inside left wall of the locker.

HEB, 2007 


I smiled weakly and ran my fingers over the old scribbled sharpie mark. How liberated I had felt when I wrote this.
It's vandalism! I had told myself, even though I hadn't hesitated doing it. How many times had I opened this locker in total? How many times had I found silly surprises in this locker from my friends? The 'letter from a secret admirer' I had found after detention one day?
I closed the locker and imaged that I was still that young girl who had so much to learn. I remember coming to school and expecting popularity; I expected that everyone would like me like they did my sister. Wouldn't I be popular by association?
And then I remembered the laughs and the jokes; the first time someone had realized that I was a little clumsy and thought it was funny. The countless times I was purposely tripped and the days I cried walking down the hall. The days I called my mom and begged her just to let me come home.
On the bottom of the locker door was a faint dent. Kneeling down, the memory returned to me.

I was walking down the hall and listening to my iPod when someone decided to trip me and push me at the same time. Everything was too fast for me realize what was going on. I went flying towards the lockers and my head crashed into the bottom of my own locker, creating a Holliann-shaped dent that is still here five years later. 
I remember laying on the floor after the incident and covering my face as instant and hopeless tears started falling from my eyes. It had felt like every nerve ending in my body was screaming. I felt like screaming. 
I heard laughter surrounding me and looked up to find a circle of faces mocking me. I clumsily gathered up my scattered belongings and darted off, my tears stinging my red hot face. 

The memory still dug at my insides but as I walked away, I realized that now, I'm not the kind of woman that you can trip and push into a locker.
The carpet in the main hallway was once red and now it's green. I passed the principal's office and thought about the one time I was kicked out of a class. I was kicked out for saying the word 'virgin'. At the time I was angry; now I find the memory a little funny.
The main hallway was where I used to sit and do homework when I went to summer school for purposely failing English class. Summer school was surprisingly fun for me; you went from 8-12 every day and I got to finish early because I had the highest grade in the class.
I meandered into the bathroom and looked into the old foggy mirror, one that was so old and warped it resembled a fun house mirror.

"I hate the way I look." 

I remember telling myself as I looked at the thick, frizzy hair, the uncontrollable acne and the disturbingly large nose. As a fourteen-going-on-fifteen-year-old, I was going through the most awkward stage of my life. My feet and hands were too large for my body and I was the clumsiest person I knew.
I looked closely at who I was now.
Long, blonde-bronze hair and a nose I finally grew into (accompanied with a purple nose ring), I had grown into my looks for the most part. I never look in the mirror now and felt the way I did when I was an awkward fourteen year old. That phase was something I thought would never end. The constant helplessness; the worrying that I'd never feel normal. But now, I was half a decade older and a million times more confident. The gap in my teeth was completely gone along with the frustratingly stubborn acne.

I remember telling myself every day that my life would be better if I was prettier.

This was the bathroom where I sat with Felicia for a whole class as she cried hysterically because "the love of her life" had broken up with her; this was the bathroom where I found the bomb threat and left in a panic.
This is the bathroom where, during a school lock down, a teacher locked me in here alone because she forgot to check if it was empty or not.
My reflection showed a person who had lived through a four year roller coaster ride.
I left the bathroom and walked to the gymnasium.
In my mind, I could see myself walking into this gym on my first day as a lost and falsely confident freshman, or "smelt" as it was called here. I imagined as I grew a little every day, and a lot every year.
Up on the purple and gold curtained stage was where I performed three plays and where I graduated and threw my cap up in the air. It was also where I strutted out in a beautiful pink, poofy prom dress with a good friend on my arm as an escort. I imagined the whole gym was full of noise; I imagined a basketball game was getting heated up on that old gym floor. The pep band was playing with all it had; the extremely supportive community was there with chants and posters; the families of the players cheered them on proudly. Purple and gold was everywhere. What about winter carnival when the most ridiculous events went on in that gym? Dunk tanks and obstacle courses; karaoke and hot dog eating contests. After graduation instead of going on a trip, we had stayed right here in this gym and had an all nighter with live bands, jump houses, a hypnotist and casino games. I smiled as I remembered how Gilman, an undergrad, had hid in the school all night that night.
The tightening feeling in my chest made me almost flinch. Why had it gone so quickly? Why didn't I stop and cherish exactly how precious those moments were?
And then there were moments that weren't as precious.

How about when our school was lectured by the principal because the whole Woodland Dragon side of the gym had turned its back at a basketball game as the rival school's players were announced? Or the bomb threat assemblies? Or the time the governor came to visit us to speak to us about how the mill my father, and almost every father in the whole town, were employed at was being shut down that day? Or the assembly that came after a local STD outbreak? On the cover of the Bangor Daily news once read 'BAILEYVILLE: A RACIST TOWN' and was next to a picture that was taken in this gym.
Even worse; that gym was the location of the memorial service that was held for a boy who lived down the street from me. He had drowned while canoeing with friends.
That service was one that I'll never forget; his friends and family could barely get out their words as they talked about his life and the people he had touched. I remember a large picture of him was placed on that big stage, along with a table full of his favorite belongings.
I was lost in memories that were so loud, but my actual surroundings were chillingly quiet. How could I forget that all of these things had happened here?
I walked around a little bit as the nostalgia set in.
Why was it that every moment of these four years had contributed somehow to who I was now? What if I had sat a different lunch table? What if I wasn't bullied? What if I was effortlessly popular like I always wanted so badly to be? I dreamed of being a mighty Lady Dragon basketball star. Instead, the one year I did play I failed off on purpose.
My father has always told me never to wonder what 'could have been' because it isn't what happened, and it never will be.
But I can't help but wonder.
If I hadn't of sit at the lunch table I did, I wouldn't be as close as I am with Felicia. Felicia is the one who invited me to join Civil Air Patrol with her. That's what introduced me to Major Murray and life changing experiences I would never trade.
If I wasn't bullied in the halls every day of that gruesome freshman year, I wouldn't have the self-strength I have now. And if I wasn't bullied and was effortlessly popular, I would have a seemingly perfect high school story where I got everything I wanted. That's what I thought I wanted then.
Instead, I had misfit friends who supported me through the bullying. Instead, I performed in plays and was never a sports star. I played the French Horn and sang in the chorus. I went on the academic decathlon trip every year. I performed in the Color Guard wearing my Civil Air Patrol uniform. I worked in a grocery store for almost all of my high school career and never had time to go to the infamous pit parties that were constantly being broken up by cops.
The overcast sky streamed in a very faint light through the gym's few windows. The air was still and the gym was silent. My memories were doing all the chattering.
I never thought I'd miss this old gym with the out-dated rubber floor.
Whimsically, I started to dance.
Why? I guess I don't know. It felt right to me.
I used to worry that I was never going to fit in; I used to think the only way I'd be happy was if I was popular. I used to wish this time away. I used to want to be where I am now.
Nothing can give me my high school years back, but nothing stops me from learning all that I have learned from it. Academically, of course I learned. But in other ways I had learned even more.
I danced around and laughed to myself. How is it possible that I was fourteen five years ago?