Sunday, January 3, 2010

Days Gone By

I am 23 years old today. While reminiscing about days gone by and visiting my old xanga site today, I found these little bits of writing I did when I was a senior in high school in AP English Lit. I hope you enjoy them.

She realizes that she’ll be having to leave soon, that she has to move on with the rest of the world no matter what her heart is telling her; time goes on, the clock keeps ticking, the sand keeps on pouring, and no amount of wishing, hoping, thinking, planning, crying, heartache, promises, or lying to herself will change that, because things are made to change; high school isn’t meant to last forever, all of the fun things, the friends, the homework, the teachers she likes, the teachers she doesn’t, the cliques, the papers, the football players, the pretty girls, the band geeks, the drama kids, the constant struggle to fit in, the stress that is really self inflicted, the band competitions, the trends that seem so silly three years later yet so vital when they’re “in,” the life all kids hold for four years; she knows that in four years, maybe even sooner, all of her life now will seem so trivial, but now, at this exact point in her life, she’s not ready to let go, she doesn’t want to leave; so, she goes to all of the senior activities like Senior Sing and cries when she leaves because she isn’t prepared to leave this life she has known for all of her years, the life that goes like this: home, sleep, school, home, sleep, school, home, sleep, school, over and over and over, with new things thrown in there every once in a while like vacation, summer, dance class, name it, it’s in there, because life is like that for the first eighteen years of life; then, she will be thrown out into the “real world” sent off to college, or the armed forces, and she will no longer be a part of that life she’s led for eighteen years, because there’s a new routine; no parents, new schedule, and new people, not the same ones shes known for years and years, the ones she used to hang out with when she was seven that know her most embarrasing secrets but she doesn’t have to worry about because she hasn’t talked to them in at least five years, and shes not even sure if they know her name anymore; these are the familiar things that she doesn’t want to leave, even though she’s ready to get out of the life she leads and start anew, leaving will be hard; it hasn’t even happened yet, and it’s already hard... her last homecoming, her last competition, her last concert, her last prom, her last... everything; what will come next is a mystery, a book yet to be started, a life that is scary but exhilarating and exciting at the same time, holding the mystery of “life beyond school,” she doesn’t think shes ready; but when it comes right down to it, when she is thrown out by herself, she knows that since she has to be ready, she will be.

Heres the second one:

I watch the bands perform, watch the flags fly in the air together, the rifles spin perfectly together, and the sabres rotate with glinting blades and deadly hilts, while tears form then disappear over and over again; it’s my last weekend ever of band competitions, something that seems to have taken forever to have gotten here, but at the same time seems to have come so fast; it seems like just yesterday I was trying out for the colorguard, with Mrs. Grubbs sighing every time I ran away from my flag when I tossed it into the air, my frustration at how hard guard was compared to what I thought it would be; first band camp came, and I hated every minute of it, going home each night crying myself to sleep because I knew that I was committed to do this terrible activity for the rest of the year, hating myself for even thinking I could do it, wishing I was a quitter; then, the next year, I kept going because Mrs. Grubbs made me love guard, even though it was hard at times, I loved what I did, I loved the feel of a flag in my hand, and once a rifle was put in my hand, I was in love with it; I learned the pain of being hit with a dense wooden block, and the joy of catching it perfectly with a “snap” in unison with the rest of the rifle line; I learned that even when I dropped equipment in the middle of the show, it was ok, and I just had to keep going because most likely, unless I made a big deal of it, no one else noticed and having a judge notice that I dropped the weapon is almost as bad as the feeling that comes with knowing I hadn’t done my best because every other time I’d done that toss, it had landed perfectly in my hands; that was the problem actually, the reason I was so upset about the fact that my prelims performance might have been my last; I over rotated my sabre toss, catching it at half a turn past where I was supposed to, making my heart break thinking about how that could have been my last time ever to have the chance to have a perfect show, and knowing that I lost that chance, all because I was nervous; I was nervous about making finals, I wanted it so bad so that I could honestly make my last show my best, and when we made finals, I got that chance; I nailed every toss, and just performed my show, making my last show one of the most memorable I’ve ever had; no drops, no falls, no missing flags when I got to my spot, no regrets, none at all because I know that I did my best; after four years of failures in guard, after the heartaches that came about after my second year, after the pain all of the seniors experienced this year over seemingly stupid things, it all came to a close at a national competition where the Jefferson City High School Marching Jay Band made history, being one of the two first Missouri bands ever to make Bands Of America finals... now it’s over; I think I might be ok with that; in fact, I know I’m ok with that, because it was a good journey, and I’m a better person for having made it.

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