by the end of my senior year in high school, i just wanted it to be over. understandable.
now, i'd give almost anything to go back.
i'll recount the years for you [what i can remember].
FRESHMAN YEAR:
after going to a private school from preschool to 8th grade, transitioning into a public high school was more than scary. my first day of freshman year is probably on my Top 10 Worst Days list. i knew no one except 2 people, one of which i had had a crush on for the previous 4 years. i didn't really talk to either of them, and was really shy and quiet. i met Katie and Ellie my freshman year. we had another friend, Julie. she was insane, but in a good way for the most part. Me and Julie got really close sophomore year. at one point, Katie and I stopped being close because Julie had come between us. Julie eventually transferred to Hayfield [another highschool in the county] because she said that she couldn't stand us. she still claimed until senior year that i copied everything that she did. there were no cliques then, everyone was friends with everyone else. that was something that we all took for granted, i think, because after freshman year, EVERYONE split up. this was also the year that my mom and my stepdad started dating, and i realized that our plan of moving to La Jolla was never going to happen.
SOPHOMORE YEAR:
i'm going to be honest, i can't remember hardly anything about this year. not because i was on drugs or anything, just because.. i'm not really sure. Katie and i were best friends by this time, and Ellie was right along with us. we were always together, and did everything together. it was pretty perfect. i was still close with my friend Charisse from highschool. i met my first real boyfriend, Zane, through her. i used to go to local shows A LOT my senior year, and i'd go with Charisse most of the time. i got really into the local scene. that was pretty lame looking back on it. but i suppose we learn from our mistakes. i got my first kiss this year at Flipside Festival [a major show where local bands play along side bands like Motion City Soundtrack and The Academy Is..] when i was 16. i've always felt like this was really late for me. oh well. the summer of my sophomore year i lost my virginity to Zane. i was 16 and he was 18. when his mom found out that we had been having sex she was really upset. i walked in on her and Zane talking about it and she was in tears holding a condom wrapper in her hand. that was pretty awful.
JUNIOR YEAR:
by far the most memorable year of high school. i went into my junior year happy with my boyfriend and best friend. everything was awesome. i had been slacking on my school work before this year, and i told myself [and my mom] that i'd raise my grades. junior year is supposed to be the most important year. i didn't do so well. Ellie, Katie and I were still close friends at the beginning of the year, but that quickly changed. cliques were very present by junior year, and everyone knew who the people who partied were. long story short: Ellie chose alcohol over us. i can remember one specific incident when i realized she wasn't the same. we were practicing for something afterschool with most of the class of 07. i asked Ellie to drive me home so that i could get something that i forgot and i needed. she was the only one out of all of us that had her license. there is a law that says you can only have a certain number of people in the car at one time. she never followed this rule until that day. she didn't give me a ride home, and our friendship pretty much ended there. it sounds pretty petty to think that it ended because of a car ride, but that wasn't the only thing. after we stopped being friends she started talking a lot of crap about me, which was really lame. but whatever. April 22nd was Zane and i's year anniversary. we went to the museums in DC and i wrote him probably the most adorable card pouring out my heart. we broke up the next day. this was the only time in my life where i seriously considered suicide. i have never been so devastated in my entire life. but it was over. he completely stopped talking to me after we broke up, despite my numerous attempts. come to find out in the middle of my senior year that my mom had called his mom and told her to not let him talk to me. bullshit. i ended my senior year depressed, without a boyfriend and with one less best friend. however, this was the year that i got my first job at the movie theatre. that job, as you'll see, has brought me so much.
SENIOR YEAR:
the summer of junior year i worked every weekend at the movie theatre. it was awesome. all the managers hated me because i have horrible work ethics, but i loved every minute of it. we all fucked around so much. there was a group of guys that would always come up to me when i was in box office and tell me that it was their birthdays. i'm not an idiot, and i knew that they were fucking with me, but one of them was cute so i figured what the hell and let them in for free. they came almost every weekend, completely plastered, and would talk to me and tell me to come to these "house parties" that didn't really exist. these guys were Andrew, Enzo, Tyler, Ryan, and Wesley. yes, Wesley my boyfriend. there was one day that they came in right before i got off work. Andrew and Enzo went into the theatre and me and Katie went in when we got off and watched the same movie. when they came out I made sure that Andrew saw me and we all exchanged numbers and hung out. Andrew left for Wisconsin the day after that. he had said that we were going to hang out before he left, but that didn't happen. he called me a few times from Wisconsin when he was drunk at 2 in the morning. but he was cute so it didn't really matter. then he didn't call me for an entire week, and i figured that nothing was going to come out of it. i started talking to this other guy Aubrey, and things got kind of serious with us. i went to the movies with Aubrey the night that Andrew came back from Wisconsin. he called me and told me that he was at the movies, too, so i went out to see him and Enzo. Aubrey is the definition of the "Alpha Male" and got really upset. before he left he smacked me as hard as he could on my ass and walked away. Andrew still hates him for that. Enzo and Andrew came back to my house and Tyler and Danny Lee came over and they all got fucking wasted. i had to let them stay at my house because clearly they couldn't drive. Andrew asked me out that night. we dated for 3 months after that, and i was the happiest that i'd been since me and Zane broke up. unfortunately, Andrew was grounded 80% of the time, and i hardly ever saw him. but, damn, was i a good girlfriend. i would pick him up from school, take him home to get his work shit, take him to work, pick him up when work was over, and drive him home. i wasn't even allowed to go inside when i took him home because he was grounded. it was bullshit, looking back on it, but i did it because i loved him. we broke up because he said he couldn't do it anymore. i had been telling him this for the past 2 months. he got ungrounded the week that we broke up. once again -- bullshit. i got really depressed after this, too. i had quit my job right when we started dating because i broke my nose. i got another job, but got a reckless driving ticket while i was going to work, and had to quit that, too. so i was once again depressed and jobless. after we broke up i went into the classic "i'm lonely so i'm going to sleep with everyone who gives me the slightest bit of attention". i slept with 5 people within 2 months. i went a little overboard. this was when the whole Mike thing happened, too, and that fucked me up even more. i kept sleeping around, and everyone knew how i was. i would get text messages all the time asking me to come over, or asking if i'm "trying to fuck". it was degrading. but for some reason i liked it. i liked the attention, as messed up as that is. i was hanging out with Katie for the most part, and i became really close with Kurt. Kurt was really close with the people who partied all the time, so by the end of the year, i was closer with them, too. i finally felt like i was friends with everyone again, and that was a good feeling. prom brough on some really weird times. some stupid bitch pretty much stole my prom date, but he was stupid for even going with her because he knew that he liked me more. seems really immature now, but at the time it meant a lot. i eventually went with Kurt, which was awesome because i love him. the afterparty stuff was a mess though, and we ended up just going home afterwards. by the time graduation came around, me and Mike were just about to make things official, and it was kind of awkward. at all night grad he asked me if it was alright for him to kiss me in front of everyone. i told him no. i was never really comfortable with our relationship. there's no doubt in my mind that my senior year + senior year summer was the best time of my life. despite all the shit that happened during the school year, it was still awesome. and i had the time of my life over the summer. i went to the beach with my best friend, and i did get the worst sickness that i've gotten in a while, but i got to get close with Wesley, which was what i'd been wanting for pretty much the past few months. i remember being really confused when things first started happening between us because i wasn't sure what it was going to be like when we got back to Virginia. i knew that all of his friends hated me, and i wasn't sure what he was going to do. he told me that nothing was going to change, and it didn't. he took me out to dinner on my birthday, and we were together pretty much every day all day for the next month until he left for Fort Benning in August.
i can honestly say that i'm the happiest that i have ever been. i'm with someone that i love more than anything, i have the best friends in the entire world, and i'm studying something in school that i love doing. it sucks that we can't go back in time, because if i could relive my senior year over again, i would. i wouldn't want to be in any other place in my life right now, and i think [+ hope] that it can only get better.