draft/ essay two

School Daze: High School Reflections

My fondest memories of High School were the train rides back and fourth to school. I remember riding the train with my friends and having a good time; a care free time; now six years removed from high school graduation I wonder where those times have gone. It used to be that my only worries concerned pimples, clothes, girls and how not having pimples and ugly clothes would get me the girls. I remember the high school basketball team. We were always undermanned and the personnel we had wasn’t very good collectively, but we had fun and we worked hard. I guess we figured that if we couldn’t gain satisfaction in the “win” column we could at least give it all that we had out on the basketball court. I came to the Hudson School as an 8th grader.
I had never heard of the city of Hoboken before being accepted there and I did not like the idea of having to leave my friends behind in Hart middle and East Orange high, but even after being ridiculed for going to private school and having my toughness questioned by the guys in the neighborhood I was able to grin and bear it and soon after that I got over it. There was one person that helped me get over it rather quickly. At the age of fourteen I had never saw anyone that I thought was as beautiful as this girl whom I met on the train ride home on my second day of 8th grade. It was like puppy love on my end. I remember looking at her during that train ride and being at a loss for words. If that first train ride was my last chance to make a good impression on her, then I would’ve failed miserably. Luckily I got a few chances to redeem myself. Once I stopped being in awe of her we became really good friends and soon we got into a relationship.
I was in 8th grade and she was a high school freshman so it wasn’t going to last simply because I was too immature to be in a real relationship and although it hurt that she broke up with me I got over it after a few days and we resumed being friends, but there was something inside of me that didn’t want to let it go, something inside of me that had to have this girl. I was popular in high school. I wasn’t the ideal symbol of popularity; I was short, I had acne and I wasn’t the Adonis that every guy wanted to be and every girl wanted to be with, but what I lacked in good physical attributes I made up for with charisma and personality. I mastered the art of acting as if I didn't know any of these things. It helped that no one really reminded me of these things,at least to my face . No matter how low my self esteem was I was going to try extra hard to disguise those feelings from everyone else. If people know what makes you tick they can potentially use those weaknesses against you, so I disguised a lot of my sorrow with bravado so that I could protect myself psychological, however, the further I ran away from revealing myself to others the closer I got to having to deal with myself. As my acne grew worse and worse, my grandmother would take me to the dermatologist and she spent hundreds of dollars on creams and ointments and none of them worked.
I was really down on myself and had no self confidence. I had a different girlfriend every year of high school so it was obvious that girls saw something in me that would make them want to know more, but whatever those girls saw in me I struggled to see in myself. During freshman year, I found out that the girl who I was after got into a relationship with one of my good friends. I was crazed with anger, but as with everything else I swallowed hard and moved on. I didn’t understand that what I was doing was dangerous. I kept stockpiling heartbreak after heartbreak until finally I was consumed with sorrow and hatred. I wasn’t just dealing with all that had happened in high school, but everything that had happened in my life up to that point, situations and complications that none of my closest friends knew about and would never know about because I didn’t want anyone’s pity. Under this outwardly happy, fun-loving, playful and confident exterior, rested an angry, confused, frustrated, and deeply saddened young man who could never fully express himself because he was afraid that no one could ever understand the depths of his misery.
It wasn’t all bad though, I remember the laughs that I had with my friends and the crazy stuff I used to do. Even that in a way showed how low my self esteem was, I felt I had do crazy things and make an ass of myself to feel like I was cool and accepted, but at the same time I seldom saw anyone else doing the things that I was encouraged to do. In eleventh grade I was more laid back and I dropped the persona that I had developed for myself, it was also my distant lover’s senior year. We had been friends after our first break up, and she told me everything regarding her social life; she wasn’t as open about her personal family life. That year we started to get that old feeling back. We had a good time on the school overnight trips before winter break and going into winter break we were as close as we had ever been. After basketball season was finished I focused more on the relationship that I was trying to have with this girl. With Valentine’s Day approaching. I decided that I wanted to do something that would give her no choice but to fall in love with me.
I knew that she loved Winnie The Pooh and was fond of white chocolate candy, so I had one of her classmates whose family had a chocolate making business get me some white chocolate and then I went and bought her a Winnie the Pooh bear that was about as tall as me. I got balloons and a card and walked in 15 degree temperatures through my neighborhood and to the train station to go to school. I remember getting ridiculed by the other guys in the neighborhood and being looked at funny by people on the train including those who I went to school with, but I didn’t care. I went to her class during the home room period and gave them to her. Her face lit up and it was evident that I had made her as happy as I had always envisioned. The next day happened to be my birthday. When I got to school she gave me a card. When I read the card I felt happier than I had ever felt at any time in my life up to that point. She wrote a letter inside the card saying that she loved me and that she didn’t just want to be friends anymore. We were at the height of our relationship, but we were about to come crashing back down to earth. I found out during her best friend’s birthday party that she had started going out with some guy around the time we were supposed to be talking.
I then descended even further than I ascended on the day she told me that she loved me. It was a crushing blow to my psyche and it damaged our friendship severely. We didn’t talk to each other that much for the rest of the school year and when we did talk it wasn’t pleasant. Left without a date for the junior prom I contemplated not going, but the girl’s best friend asked me to go with her. I don’t know how much of it was pity, how much of it was her really wanting to go with me, and how much of it was her knowing that what her friend did to me was wrong. My grandmother got me a PT Cruiser limousine and when I invited both of the girl’s friends; my date and another of her good friends and failed to invite her, it seemed to create an even greater chasm in our relationship.
She blamed me for ruining her prom during our dance after she was voted prom queen and I was voted prom prince. I really didn’t know what she expected me to do, how could’ve I invited her and the guy that she chose over me to ride in the limo with me and how awkward would it have been if I had. I tried to make amends at her graduation. I got her a card congratulating her for graduating and I wrote her a letter talking about how I felt about her and our relationship over the last four years, but after that we really didn’t talk until the following winter. Going into my senior year I had to adjust to the girl of my dreams not being around anymore. I got over it after awhile and went on with my life. I went thru my senior year and things were alright. During a basketball game in Jersey City, N.J. the girl of my dreams returned. After the game we talked and she leaned in and kissed me, it was cool that we were able to end on a good note and I felt like after that conversation we could rekindle our friendship again. I started filling out college applications in January of 2003. I filled out the applications with the assumption that I would be able to attend school out of state if I was accepted.
I didn’t get accepted to a lot of the colleges that I applied to, but I did get accepted to Liberty University in Virginia. My grandmother who encouraged me to apply to school then told me that she couldn’t afford to pay for me to go. I became livid and my grandmother and I got into an argument. We had gotten into arguments before, but nothing as volatile as that. She kicked me out and told me that I had to stay at my other grandmother’s house. This all occurred with three months left in my senior year of high school. I thought about that argument a lot and I apologized to my grandmother because she has always been there for me and she did not deserve that from me. I said a lot of things that I shouldn't have and that is something that happened that I truly regretted. Senior prom was fast approaching and that year I was contemplating going by myself whereas last year I contemplated not going at all.
I had a female friend in my class that I had always had a weird relationship with. It was obvious that we liked each other, but we always acted like we couldn’t stand each other. We would make jokes about each other and from the outside looking in we had the prototypical brother/sister relationship. It never became more because of my infatuation with the “dream girl” during previous years. I saw that during those years she had grown tired of hearing about the “dream girl”. She told me after we agreed to go to the senior prom together that she always gave me signals, but I never picked up on them because I was chasing the “dream girl” and pursuing other girls. If me and this surprise lover were only meant to make magic for one night we did and it was the best night of my life at that time. I picked her up in a Jaguar limousine. My maternal grandmother outdid herself from the previous year when she got me a PT Cruiser limo. My grandmother went out of her way to make me feel like a king that night I’ll always remember and appreciate her for that. I won the prom prince in my junior year, but that accomplishment and that night was ruined by the drama that had taken place between me and the “dream girl”. There were rumblings that I would win the prom king this time around and after receiving unanimous votes from everyone who attended I won the prom king.
I down played the award, but deep down it meant a lot to me. My date and I left a little after midnight and instead of trying to find a party to go to we stayed together. I put on some slow music in the limousine as we drove and told her I how I felt. She thanked me for showing her a great time. She looked at me and I looked at her and we began to kiss. It got hotter and heavier and we embraced all the way to her house. I wanted to come in, but she said her mother would be back soon. I went back home thinking that I had just experienced the greatest night of my young life. The only thing that I regretted going into graduation was that I never picked up on the signals that my “surprise lover” showed me. I began feeling like she was the one that I should have been trying to pursue, but with her going away to Temple it was too late.
We talked and she explained that to me, but I didn’t want to understand; I had once again lost a chance with someone really special. I bought her favorite flowers on my way to graduation. I didn’t get a ride to graduation, I caught the train instead like I always had when I went to Hoboken. I wore a shirt with my mother’s picture on it and some jeans to graduation. I wore it as a reminder of how far I had come and I wore it because I knew she wouldn’t be able to attend and I wanted to see her there. The time I spent in high school was confusing, frustrating, saddening, heartbreaking, fun, memorable, and beautiful; I wouldn’t go back and change a thing.