After-School reflections

It’s two in the morning and Adele is my company.

The end of high school doesn't feel as eventful as movies would have you assume, and even there it isn't that glamorous. The music and end scene—the lessons learned and the friends made—is almost never impacted by the graduation. Even the speeches made and applauses echoing and the hats thrown don’t fill the void of the “what now?” question, and it isn't possible for me to answer it now.

I guess I only feel this way since I’m stuck in limbo: I’ve graduated by all intents and purposes, but I have not experienced “Graduation”. The big day does not arrive until Wednesday for me, and I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll ever have a more unreal and confusing weekend in my life. There’s nothing going on. Nothing has changed: I’m still wasting whole hours of my life on tumblr instead of studying French. I’m still making headcannons to shows that’ll never see the light of day. I’m still pretending I have conversations with the 11^th in my head a la horrifying self-insert fanfiction.

This entire weekend, I believe, will feel a lot like an epic point lost mid-sentence.

Yet even with this, today still feels rich in my own quiet reflection: I woke up knowing it was over. And that fact alone gave me a sense of matured satisfaction: by all intents and purposes, I am too old to be in high school.

No, I don’t believe I’ve matured in one night. It’s not possible. In fact, I’m strangely attached to this eye-sore of a paragraph format, yet I’ve kept it because I will never be forced to write one again.

I wonder if this is what they call Stockholm syndrome.

I guess it’s what happens when you experience four years of a stable system.

Four years of a stable system which based my self-worth on testing.

Four years of unrealistic codes of conduct: some good, most baseline idiotic and terrifyingly retrograded.

Four years of horribly bad lunch food and aggravating douchebags cutting in line.

Four years of my life have come, and four years of my life have gone by, and time has sped up much more than I’ve had liked.

Those hours which contained the precious moments I’d have with my friends. Friends I would most likely, for the vast majority, never see again.

Precious, fleeting hours which insisted on speeding up on me and edging me closer to the void, and later death. Cramming in more hours each day, however, wouldn’t change the amount of hours you’d live, so much as give you the illusion the hours in one day are enough to satisfy your will to live.

Yesterday, for example, needed the hours associated in two. It was the last school trip I’d ever take. It was the first night we would party ‘til 3 in the morning, and the last night we’d spend as carefree children (symbolically, at least).

It was Grad Night.

It was the first time I had the chance to experience Disneyland in the careful, detail oriented eye I always fantasized about. It was my first trip to California Adventure and all its’ pretty, idealized glory.

It was my “first rave”, with drinks designed to replicate alcohol. It was also the first time for many others, nervously glancing every way to ensure they weren’t being judged. They made me laugh.

Word to whoever will listen: a real party involves real friends and lower standards of integrity.

It was one of many times our trips weren’t as “picture perfect” as I imagined them in my head, yet far exceeded any form of “perfect” a person could imagine. My friends and I have soul.

It was one of the last time I’d see some of these guys again, and I think you could obviously see who it was that would say in your life and who wouldn’t. That day, every word left unsaid, and every subtle movement implied illustrated who fully intended to stay and who wasn’t planning on even saying a word to you later on.

I love those three who stayed with me the whole night through, and they know who they are: they’re the guys who endured me fawning over animation books. The guys who I patiently walked through every store with. 

The guys I laughed with and shared life stories with. The guys I ran like a bitch for to meet at the other side of the park, only to see the ride close down before I could go on with them one last time. The guys I waited for and made silly faces to while kicking myself for not being able to run faster.

Those four are my clique, and to quote a Star Trek post on Tumblr, “Ain’t nobody messin’ with my clique”.

I love you guys.

With Love
Nikola Strange

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NOTES:

Special thanks to Drew, Jazmine, and Aaron.