High School (1)

I didn’t have a good time in high school, but I don’t think anybody did. I had a handful of friends I only talked to at school. I didn’t like myself or anybody else very much. I wrote bad poetry and didn’t leave my house unless I had to. When I think of high school as a place, I think of the long hallways and shiny gray tiles. I think of the feeling of being cold and I think of crying in class. I think of it as a dream because that’s what it feels like, a dragging dream.

I dream of high school a lot. Other people tell me they dream about high school too. My mother says she still has dreams where she’s late for an exam and can’t find the room. I used to dream that I put on my backpack while sitting on the ground and couldn’t stand up. I’d push on the ground, frustrated and heavy. Now I have dreams that I’m walking in the hallways after coming back from weeks of being gone, hundreds of assignments missing.

I have dreams where I’m bullied. I was bullied a bit in high school, nothing intense. People yelled at me a lot, looked at me weird, occasionally called me stupid or spat in my hair. I was always oblivious and zoned out, usually unaware of the spit or the distant yelling until somebody pointed it out an hour later.

Looking back, I think the zoning out was a coping mechanism. I zoned out an unhealthy amount. I missed instructions, asked the girl sitting next to me what was going on. I slipped through the hallways with my eyes on the ceiling, blinking at the water stains. I fell asleep in any class led by a teacher chill enough to let me rest my head on my desk. I laid my black computer bag on the wooden desk and fell asleep. My eyes drifted closed easily in bible class. I’d be sitting up, pinching my hands under the desk, trying and failing to keep my eyes open.

I think I was only fully present in ninth grade, which felt like a disastrous year for me. I was anxious constantly. I sat in the locker room and hyperventilated between first period health and second period English. My eyes were wide and teary like a deer in the headlights. I touched lightbulbs at home, enjoyed the burning feeling between homework assignments. I picked private fights with my friends about race, gender, sexual orientation, politics. I didn’t have many friends.

There was a girl who exchanged handwritten letters with me in the hallways in ninth grade. We talked about self-harm, our queerness, and anxiety. I don’t know where all our letters are now. She gave them all to me before summer. I kept them in my closet and then threw them away as we drifted apart, seamlessly. It was a clean ending for us, which I appreciated.

Before our break, I introduced her to slam poetry and we both fell in love with Neil Hilborn and Ollie Schminkey. I transcribed their poems and kept them folded in the front pocket of my backpack for us to read at lunch. We played ukulele and guitar together in my childhood bedroom, sunlight pouring in. She sang, her voice like an angel.

I convinced her to swear more and she gave me a handwritten note full of expletives. It was all very romantic, but somehow incredibly platonic at the same time. We both were painfully “in love” with the same straight girl, who came up frequently in our letters.

I cycled through crushes, one painful unrequited love every year. I consider none of these to be love now, but I did then. Each one ended painfully. I’d cry, reach out, curl back into myself, cry more, move on. I cringe when I think about any of them.

I met my fiancé Eric in high school on a field trip to a local arts college. We went to different schools, but we knew some of the same people. We talked a little and built a plastic flower lamp together with a small group of fellow artists. I laughed at his jokes. We wore paper nametags with our names on them, and he friended me on Facebook. We didn’t speak for six months after, but when we did, we clicked.

We had our first date on the balcony in the auditorium of my high school. It was on January 20, 2016 and we watched Little Women. We whispered in the dark and giggled. I slipped my hand into his and kept stealing glances at him. I kept the ticket to the show in my dresser and he kept his ticket in his wallet until it was destroyed in the washing machine. I taped mine in the journal we pass back and forth. I’m glad we had the foresight to keep the tickets; I’m glad we both knew this relationship would last.

I think I zoned out less in school when I started dating Eric. I say this because I remember a lot more about my second semester in senior year than I do about every semester before that. I remember eating lunch at a circular table outside of the lunchroom with a tiny handful of people I didn’t really know or particularly like. I remember having a problem with my eyes where they’d look up and refuse to be pulled back down; it hurt like hell and I had to switch antidepressants to tame my wandering eyes. I remember music theory class which was eighth period and in the building across the parking lot. I’d make the trudge over in the snow, freezing and alone because I was the only student in that class. I remember trying to make friends in my other classes and skipping every event I possibly could, including graduation.

I mentioned skipping graduation to the new counselor, who I liked significantly less than the old counselor. I liked the old counselor a lot, actually; she let me skip gym sometimes and talked about sexuality with me without being condescending and judgmental.

“I don’t think I’ll go to graduation,” I said, eyes focused on the window behind her.

“You can’t do that,” she said, “You have to come.”

“I do?” I asked, looking at her.

“Yes,” she said, “Well. We could discuss it with the principal if you really don’t want to go.”

“Okay,” I said, knowing fully that I wouldn’t discuss it with the principal. I smiled politely. Everything felt so silly. Why did I have to go to graduation and sit on stage with people who I didn’t like and who didn’t like me? Who says I have to? Why would I put on a dress I didn’t want to wear and a gown over that and sit under hot spotlights for two hours and sweat? My mom picked up my diploma a week after graduation because I came down with pneumonia.

I haven’t stepped foot on campus since I took my last exam. I felt unbelievably free after that exam. I sat on the curb for the last time, reading a Neil Hilborn chapbook and scribbling in my journal. I pulled out my phone and posted on snapchat “I’m transgender by the way,” laughing about how easy everything was. All the silly rules and all the judgment and the administration as a whole. The school couldn’t expel me, I was gone already; this made me laugh more. What was I so afraid of before?

On the night of graduation, I hung out with a small group of friends who had graduated two years before me. We ate cake and ice cream and laughed as we sat on the couch. I vaguely remember playing Super Smash Bros. It was better than graduation would have been. I wore jeans and a tank top.

The night ended with one of the girls helping me clean up my botched haircut with an electric razor. I’d hacked it away with a pair of scissors in the bathroom a week prior, leaving long patches in random areas. I looked like I’d stuck my head in a blender. She draped a towel over my shoulders and trimmed and shaved until my hair looked half decent. I ran my fingers over my scalp, every hair an equal length. I smiled at the mirror, feeling even better than I had after the last exam.