Time alarm clock went off: 6:04 a.m.
Number of times pressed snooze: 6
Actual time out of bed: 6:17 a.m.
Minutes getting to school: 10
Minutes spent stressing about being late to school: 10
Some people say high school was the best time of their lives. That they were at the prime of their youth. Full and young and curious. Exploring. Just getting used to their bodies, the curves, the height, the hair. What looks great versus merely good. Trying on personas like shoes in a shoe store – what fits, what doesn’t.
We live by our own inexplicable set of rules, we high school attendees. We laugh when we want to. Cry when it feels good, dance when our minds need a break. We are neither Democrat nor Republican, Green nor Independent. Our minds work fast. We’re open. We have not yet settled into a lifestyle with rules and regulations carved into stone. We have not experienced enough to know what we want this lifestyle to be.
Yet somehow at this moment of opportunity, this youth, I feel dull. Dull and bland and waiting. Letting myself be pulled along by life instead of grasping it by the hand and soaring through adventures and discoveries. I want to spice my life up. Toss in a jalapeño or two. I want to run at night and award the moon the glory it deserves. I want to sweat and work and earn something more than the satisfaction of good grades, a nice reputation. I want something I can see and feel and touch, and something more intangible too. I want opportunities. I want travel. I want to meet people who know things. Things like fish and stars and singing and how to grow trees and why color is color and sound is sound. I want to find myself and write her down. So no one forgets. I want all this because sometimes, I feel small. I am one out of six billion people. We all are.
These first days of school, it seems possible. So many days to be lived and words to be said and hugs to be had and laughs to be laughed. It seems so endless on the first day of school, those newborn steps on campus right after the slam of a car door, twisting the cap on summer. The first bell gonging the year into action, the start of moving forward. It’s all so ripe with opportunity, so pregnant with promise. My goal this year is to do more, experience everything, memorize life. I want to be able to tell it, to pass it on. This year I’m going to jump into the path of adventure instead of meekly stepping aside and letting it ride on by. This year I’m going to try things. I’m going to stay up late, rise early. This year, I’m going to live.
