‘You Can’t Go Back And Change The Beginning But You Can Start Where You Are And Change The Ending.’ C.S Lewis

I went to an alternative high school

I know

How fitting…right?

We called our teachers by their first names and had art all day on Thursdays

It occupied one upper floor of an elementary school

I skipped class more than I should have

There was a student there we had nicknamed ‘Neil the Nazi’

He carried around a copy of ‘Mein Kampf’

Maybe it was just one time

I don’t really remember

It’s ironic that this was so relevant then

Because I remember feeling like one of the most ethnically diverse people at the school

And that is saying a whole lot about the lack of diversity

It was so whitewashed that I didn’t want my parents to attend my graduation

Afraid my father would show up in a suit with his big gold Jesus-on-a-cross necklace

And it would be like bright flashing lights above my parents

Announcing our difference

Ironic too because I looked like this at that point:

Different wasn’t supposed to be negative

Unless you were my parents in a sea of WASPs

Anyway

I went from a catholic all girls school

To the alternative school

It was like a culture shock

I felt like a displaced person

Or like someone who’d accidentally happened upon a secret society

Who didn’t belong

We did pottery

Drew live nudes

And smoked too many cigarettes sitting underneath hundred year old trees

Griping about life

Not knowing nearly how hard it had yet to become

I smoked so much pot

That I grew tired of it’s magic

I was dissatisfied with everything

I didn’t know then

What I know now

I thought high school was as difficult as it was gonna get

I didn’t realize that life was only getting started

It all seemed so endless and suffocating at the same time

I wanted to be free of my parental supervision

Separated from my cultural ties

I didn’t know my hardest battles were laying in wait for me

Lulling me into believe the worst was over

I’d soon become such an easy target

Thinking the war was over

Feeling victorious with no need left to fight

Little did I know

That it was all just beginning