Just Pixels

When my last year of high school rolled around all I could think of was getting the crap out of there. So tired was I of the "high life" — the veritable champagne of educations. But in my haste to skip forward into more interesting life chapters, it seems I forgot to pick something up along the way. That is until recently.

A swift phone call in June to my secondary school alma-mater procured me with the info I hoped for. And several weeks later saw me strolling down the hospital-like corridors of Norman's finest teenage education ward, reminiscing blunders of adolescence as the main office came into view. A booty of personal mementos lie in wait.

The anticipation weighed on me like so many cafeteria lunches and somewhere deep within my being a petrified, indigestible fish stick rolled over in its acidic grave. I dry heaved, but managed to contain the guttural tides. Decades of ingrained vomit-related embarrassment held my guts true to the programmed Social Code: VOMIT AT SCHOOL AND BE FOREVER REMEMBERED AS THE 'PUKE KID' (vis-à-vis: HOLD IT IN AT ALL. FREAKING. COST.)

But the office door hissed open and soon I held the anticipated package in hand. A smile sprouted on my lips and the weight of the moment came upon me. I was officially a high school graduate. The crisp diploma in my palm acting proof of the sterling accomplishment.

So it was that my official high school graduation came and went in that moment. Three blinks. Two heart beats. One ring of the office phone. The emotional summation of my years as a confused, nerdy, clueless, emotionally immature secondary education student flashed before me in a shrill technicolor. Wonk!

I heard harrowing screams, then felt tingly-warm all over before getting visions of B-flat scales being squelched out in the boxish Norman North band hall. I cried and laughed at the same time, and somewhere deep, deep down the fish stick breathed its last and returned to a reverent dormancy. I'd paid my penance. The Public School Lunch Gods (PSLGs) found their requite. The unicorns went about grazing on Rainbow Hill, and all was right in the world again.

So my spirits soared, finally winning closure to that perplexing, brilliant era.

And then I saw the envelope with my name on it. And I remembered that it contained a letter I'd written to myself in the eighth grade. An assignment we all did, with the purpose of saving it until graduation. Only my eighth-grade missive reached me a few years later than planned.

And so, as a recent high school graduate, I'll leave you with a few words of wisdom from my 14-year-old self, written on an inconsequential day in May 1999. May the fish sticks be with you.

________________

Hey, I think after high school I want to go to UCO or something. I'd like to have a music degree and major in trombone and drums. Or maybe I'd like to be a civil engineer or if all else fails then I'll be a grease monkey.

I received the outstanding band student award last night at our band concert. It was great. I don't want to get married too early in life. I figure after I graduate from college and get a job and a horse and a fast car, then I'll worry about getting married. I really don't have anything else to say so I'll see ya in the future.

-john

________________

and then an excerpt from another portion of the letter. seems i was somewhat anti-girlfriend in those days. ah, the intuitions of a teenage male mind. truly a hallmark of wisdom. sorry girls. I guess i was just going through a jerky, insensitive, cheap-as-all-get-out phase. haha. but such is life in grade No. 8.

...I don't like anyone right now. I'm going to try to stay away from a "girl friend" as long as possible due to me enjoying my freedom, time and money. I do enjoy having girls as friends but don't want a "girl friend." In my opinion I think girls are childish and extremely stupid. I really don't have anything else to say other than in the future don't get a girl friend, John.

p.s. Get more guns (hand guns)



THE END.