Commencement

I spent four years trying to stand out, I did everything I could to assert my individuality—but blending in with 300 blue gowns, I had never felt more at home, because those are the only people who truly know what it is to be a part of my remarkable class of 2007. Dr. Seuss can list “oh, the places we will go,” and Robert Frost can urge us onto “The Road Not Taken,” but in all fairness, they didn’t attend my school.

Nobody else knows what it’s like to place in a prestigious competition, only to have your name tragically mispronounced during morning announcements; or to learn what a test curve is from Mr. K, then to take pride in a seventeen out of a hundred raw score; or to go to the diner for midnight onion rings and milkshakes after finally winning battle of the classes.

We do. We saw sunny snow days, we saw worlds fall apart and were inspired to rebuild them, we jumped over the candlestick and climbed the hill, we found that perfect song for that perfect moment, and we learned. We learned where success lives, and how to draw the map to get there. We learned to unlock all the right shortcuts, and that friendships are the keys. We learned that we will never know where all the quicksand and undercurrents are, but to cross the river anyway. We learned that hope directs our compass, and it will always point to our dreams.

I have—or at least, I used to have—a Peter Pan syndrome. I didn’t want to grow up. I wanted to stay in high school and keep all these memories in the present—it was my Never Land. But now they tell me that it’s time to leave and go into the real world—and they say “real” as if high school was some sort of practice-round or holding room for something better. The pirates and fairies may have been imagined, but that is not to say they did not exist. These memories—with the anxiety of the challenges and thrill of the triumphs—are very much real. These are the foundations of our grown-up characters. And it is because of this that we all stand here, ready to leave, ready to say goodbye to Never Land.

Prom time begins... where are the wild teenage hormones?

First of all, New Year's resolution: blog more.

Has Senior Prom changed? I know that Junior Prom is more of a "go-with-friends-slash-with-a-group" sort of thing, but I assumed that Senior Prom was more of a date-type thing. More of a romantic thing. More of a "I'd tap that..." thing. I suppose this is why I was thrown off when Boy Best Friend asked me to prom last night.

[Historical Context: I asked BBF to JP last year, but at the last minute he got very very sick and couldn't come... when I found out he was in the hospital, I cried. A lot. Lovely.]

First of all, what an idiot. He opens with "Heyy... quick question." I thought he was going to ask me a homework question. Guess not. He asks if I wanted to/had plans to go to prom with BBF2. What with the disaster of the past couple months, my vague tentative plans with BBF2 had faded. But at the same time, I didn't really want to tell BBF that somewhere in me, I still would like to go with the other. So I responded with an evasive yet satisfactory "I don't have any definite plans with him." He says, "Cuz I was wondering if you would like to go with me." WHAT. Um, WHAT! I seriously did not know if he was joking or not. SO off guard.

There was no immediate impulse either way. I think I was too confused to be enthusiastic about saying yes or no. But I thought.

First of all, mad early. Five months early. Are people even people yet? (I found out that apparently, yes, people are asking... hm.) What makes him so eager to ask me so early? If we're going as friends, why would he want to secure it?

Secondly, is he just asking me because he wants to make up for last year? I don't want to go with him if he just feels bad. That would just make for a bad night.

Thirdly, um, about that friends thing... The past few weeks, I've been thinking about other boys. Not for anything serious, just fooling around, etc. And I know that he has girls. What if--within the next five months--one of us decides that we would rather go with someone who we.. well, who we could hook up with? (Then the dreaded question came up: Would BBF and I hook up??? Finally????) Then we would have to go through the whole shtick of "Well we're friends, we had an agreement, etc. etc." And that's just not fun.

I told him all of the above. And he agreed. I said that obviously I would love to go with him, but we agreed we should maybe wait. I felt bad, but I just honestly couldn't commit to him right now. And then afterwards, I thought about a few more things.

He and I have such a complicated relationship. So complicated. And so unique... especially very different from that between BBF2 and me. Apart from the emotional connection, there is a physical attraction that makes a guest appearance in our lives once in a while. And there is sexual tension. There's no doubt about it. But it seems as if that boat has sailed for us. Other friends that acknowledge that there is an attraction there fool around a little--get drunk and hook up, then laugh about it, and can shrug off playful jokes with a "Been there, done that" head shake. But BBF and I have never been there or done that. I think it has to do with 1. We became friends on the foundation of me being madly in love with him, so for a while there was a risk of going to a bad place; 2. We seem to both make an effort NOT to acknowledge each other's sex/appeal; 3. There just hasn't been an opportunity. So basically, we're platonic, but not.

Honestly, I wish we could just hook up and get it over with. Well no... to be completely honest, I want to lose my V with him. Sometimes I think that actually may happen... other times I just have no attraction to him at all... other times I have no confidence that he would want it (me). Sometimes I consciously doll myself up for him, sometimes I have no problem with him seeing me in baggy PJs and glasses.

So where would that put us as prom dates? I have no idea.

And then the question... do I tell BBF2? Last year, he got pretty pissed at me because of craaazy miscommunication. I thought we were safeties, he said no, he thought I asked him for real, I thought we weren't going together at all, I asked BBF, and BBF2 found out from someone else. *Dramatic music.* But what if I tell him, and he reads into it too much? ....Do I want to go with him?

Oy va voy...

It might be illegal tomorrow

"Do it today, it might be illegal tomorrow." I've heard it before-- the axiom emphasizes the idea of spontaneity based on risk. But I go one step further. For me, there's something so exciting about doing something that you know is wrong. I'm not talking about anything very illegal, but more along the lines of a relationship... or something. Psychologists have analyzed fantasies to no end, but I argue-- the idea of committing a forbidden act is, in a way, us taking ourselves and making us into the risky people that we want to be. I want to dig into a reoccurring example of this...

I met John the summer before our freshman year. He was going into college, I was going into high school--two incredibly separate levels of maturity. He was a TA at a summer program I was attending. There was a little flirtation, then he gave me his screen name one day, and we began to talk a lot more. We flirted a lot, and it made our days together exciting. We acted normally, but every once in a while we would catch each other's eyes and smirk. Nothing happened, although he asked me out and I wished so badly that I could say yes. He made me feel wanted: sexy and intriguing. It was new, and I liked it. He was that older guy who seemed unattainable. At the time, I was frightened; I knew there was a significant age difference between us. But I kept the memories of us in the back of my head.

Now, his younger sister, Joanne and I are best friends. Really great friends, she is so important to me. We had a mutual really close friend, and once we started to hang out, it just clicked. Then, right as our friendship reached its height, John came home. He and I had kept in touch, we talked on and off. But then we ran into each other at a school event, and the exciting flirtatious air about us came right back. And this time, I wasn't an awkward freshman scared of a physical relationship. There was a big part of me that really wanted something to happen. I wanted to fill that desire that I had been holding for years. The night after we saw each other, we talked online for a while and things got incredibly sexual. Even more, I wanted to see him. We made plans a couple times but had to cancel each time. It turned out he had a girlfriend, which was both disappointing and confusing. I thought about things we had said to each other, and it didn't add up to him being in a successful, committed relationship. But anyway, I went away for the summer, and ran into him once more after school had started again. It was the same as in the spring. I was attracted to him, and this time he was single. But I was too good friends with Joanne. I couldn't do it. Even though she insisted she would be more than okay with it, I just couldn't, I'm not that kind of friend. But now, every once in a while, the idea of him and I comes up. He invited me to a show he was in, and to stay with him at his apartment. I couldn't go, but it was still an interesting exchange. And now, it's one of my most frequent "forbidden fantasies." He's off limits-- he's older, almost out of college, and he's my best friend's brother. But that makes it even more desirable.

well, come!

And so it begins again. I was of the neo-teenie bopper crew, typing away our preteen angst for all the world to see--"all the world" being our friends to whom we vehemently sent links to our blogs. With maturation and the pressures of a social life away from the computer, I gave up on such frivolities. Instead I took up poetry and fiction, replacing rants beribboned with poor grammar and internet slang with elegant prose. It worked for me for a while, and I am happy to report that my voice as a writer has genuinely developed.

But now I find myself at an even more vulnerable point of my life. I am a senior at high school, struggling to straddle the canyon that breaks childhood with adulthood. If the insecurities and dramatics of adolescent weren't enough, I now am simultaneously faced with the intensities of independence. Sure, I've faced such challenges sporadically throughout the last few years, but now the future is glaringly waiting for me to step towards it.

And once again I find refuge in the release of anonymous blogging. But this time I vow to be truly anonymous. And I also vow never to abandon standard conventions of writing. This won't be a place for me to screech about crushes and bad grades. I plan to eloquently write about the life of a girl. Any girl. She is sad and she is happy; she is aggressive and she is pensive; she is jealous and she is tolerant. She wears her heart on her sleeve, and she wants no more than to love and be loved. She will be moved, but she will also move herself. She will whisper her secrets, and shout her epiphanies. She has highs and lows, but she is always only just that girl. That girl you know.