In which Katherine graduates.

Saturday, May 28th, 2011

Home, 12 am.
I wake up at midnight. Then two, four, five, six. I stare at the clock and fitfully doze until my mother comes in to get me up.

Graduation practice, 9 am.
As I enter the football stadium it is quickly apparent that I am the only one in at all formal attire. Most are in shorts or pajamas, while I show up in my favorite skirt--a good choice, in the end, as the heat will be a major talking point throughout the day. A friend, Courtney, is standing at the back entrance of the stadium. "Oh hello, Katherine!" she says, pointing a camera my way. "Smile!"

I stick my tongue out.

My name is called ominously out over the loud, loud, loud speaker along with several others. When I make my way up to the stage, however, the fuss is merely that there is a copy of my last paycheck from the school district for me.

I find John/cohorts and stand with them. We wait. When the production finally gets started, we sit in the assembled chairs before the stage as the principal gives instruction. Soon we're in small groups sorted by alphabet and congregating in the street outside the stadium in two separate aisles. The boys directly in front and back of me appear to be good friends and jabber incessantly through the charade. The girl who leads our group is nice; we lament the logic of the proceedings as the day grows warmer, the practice begins and we are forced to start from scratch as three graduates arrive late.

When our procession around the track is finally deemed up to snuff we sit alphabetically by last name in the perfectly placed plastic chairs as the principal lectures us on our behavior for the night. The people directly surrounding me decide that breaking the rules will be okay so long as we all do it; they can't arrest us all.

"Do you think I could come to graduation high?" someone asks seriously.

"If they can't tell."

"It's okay, man, I have eyedrops."

Graduation Lunch, 1 pm.
My father, paternal aunt and uncle, and paternal grandparents meet us in the lobby of an attraction that sits 750 feet in the air in a nearby city and hosts (among other things) a revolving restaurant. They have all traveled hours to get here. For me. The elevator doesn't arrive for something like fifteen minutes; as we finally take our seats and peruse the menu, my father jokes that he'll just have me choose a meal for him. "I mean, you're so good at deciding."

"I've already chosen what I'm getting."

"You're joking."

"No."

"I bet you've been agonizing over the menu online for days, right?"

"No, I haven't."

I don't know what he thinks he knows about me, but I have long been known for making very slow and careful decisions. This may be a joke on the outside, but it goes much deeper than that. I have not seen this man in five months, since Christmas, but he makes comments like this without fail every time we meet. My rebuttal may be simple, but it represents an astounding amount of progress on my part. I am not paralyzed.

This is his first and last snide comment. He tells me he's proud of me. I chose a lunch and he's unbearably, gushingly proud. I feel sick.

I am not accustomed to (or comfortable with) being the center of attention. Luckily, however, the lunch is not a disaster by any means. Not much is required of me, honestly. Towards the end of the meal I move to the other side of the table, where my aunt and uncle sit. They are hilarious and charming; my spirits are quickly lifted and I ride back to tinytowntexas in their vehicle to "help" navigate.

I get us almost-lost. My uncle corrects this. He's only been to tinytowntexas once.

Transition, 5:45 pm.
My aunt and uncle, mother, sister and I stand over the kitchen counter in order to consume cake and ice-cream. I have to report at the school for graduation prep soon. My grandparents and father arrive at my house just as I'm leaving, hideous cap and gown in hand.

I enter the high school through the back door.

"Do you have any contraband?"

"No."

"A phone?"

"No."

"Okay, you can go."

I do have my phone hidden on my person, but then so does everyone else.

Again we are separated by alphabet, one group of about twenty to each empty classroom where we don our glorious robes and bemoan the heat as we wait to take our senior panoramic cap and gown photo. When we do, the photographer has to rearrange us twice to fit everyone in the rickety, too-narrow frame. A boy behind me complains loudly and freely, catcalling the aged photographer as he gives instruction. I wish dearly to slap him, but we are positioned perilously like dominoes and I can't picture it going well under the circumstances. Breathing is risky as it is.

Again we wait in our assigned classrooms. I know none of the girls I chat with, but there is a sense of solidarity in the fact that we are all certain that we will faint, vomit and trip across the stage in the course of the evening. My chest seizes as we line up and wait to be called to the stadium.

Graduation, 7:30 pm.
Green polyester catches the light as we parade out into the parking lot and wait to be called again, this time all two hundred of us in our respective lines. One line will walk in on the visitors' side of the track, while the other (and my) line will walk in on the home side.

Despite the many warnings we have been given, our spacing is still slightly off as we walk onto the track and make our way to our seats. The bleachers on either side are packed. I scan the home side for my mother and in my frenzy state forget what color she was wearing earlier. The first face I find, almost immediately, is that of my ex-boyfriend.

He is either completely and utterly conspicuous (possible) or I have magic powers (possible). We find our seats; I find myself incredibly pissed off.

Heat and anxiety mix freely. We are all miserable until the sun finally sets completely and a breeze catches us. While it is still warm, the waiting is less agony. From our spot in the middle of the football stadium, a stage erected directly in front of us, we cannot really hear what the speakers are saying. If we're lucky we can catch every other word or so, and none of us are particularly interested. Instead we make snide comments and complain about our uncomfortable headwear.

Between speeches and scholarship listings it is a good two hours before they begin divvying diplomas, at which point absolutely everyone is completely over this idiocy and ready to graduate already.

I am oddly calm when it is, after all this time, my "moment." A science teacher rehearses the handshake with me one last time; the school counselor smiles and congratulates me; I step up onto the stage. I take my diploma holder, shake a hand, smile as a camera flashes, shake more hands, smile as I come off the stage and another camera flashes. I am handed a bouquet of flowers my mother ordered for me and make my way back through the middle aisle to my seat. I spend the rest of the ceremony numb.

When it's over the field quickly floods with people, immediate bedlam. Dobbin passes by several times and stares at me awkwardly. I cannot find anyone I know. Eventually I manage to extricate my phone from my person as it buzzes and locate my mother, who arrives with my father and sister close behind. Pictures are taken with each parent. I am too out of it to feel much of anything.

Home, 10 pm.
I don't like this part.

Project Graduation, 11 pm.
It's casino night (shock!) at the school sponsored grad party. The cafeteria is decorated with fairy lights; country music blares. I find Courtney, who welcomes me to follow her around and generally makes life better. I am consistently socially awkward, yet she has always seemed to get it.

Someone informs me that Dobbin was "looking for" me after graduation earlier. I almost die laughing, choking on curse words. Just get out of my head, man. Just get out.

I play blackjack with John and a group of others I don't know for while, which is as close to comfort as I'm likely to get in this moneymaking scenario. John tells me he loves me and makes a grotesque face. "What is that even, man," I say. "You love me, but I'm gross?"

Don't Stop Believing comes on over the speakers and the room proceeds to explode with voices, oddly connecting me to a group of people I will likely never see again and did not like for the majority of my time here. Auction items fill the cafeteria's stage as the night goes on; I win a door prize, fancy shampoo I stare at cluelessly.

"Want to go outside?" John asks. There is a bouncy castle slide erected in the parking lot, along with a climbing wall, jousting area and a few other entertainments. I agree to the bouncy castle and refuse the rest despite his pleas for me to pursue acts of daring.

As we return indoors it is something like three in the morning; people wait in line to receive a full cash value for their play money. John and I sit on the sidelines as a teacher and his partner dance wildly and with mad skill across a makeshift dance floor denoted by columns wrapped in fairy lights and faux ivy.

"Come on," John says, "you can't have an ass like that and not expect little gay boys not to fantasize about you."

I can't help but agree with him.

Soon John joins in on one last contest: karaoke. My phone battery is finally dwindling as I watch the contestants converse near the stage; the line for cash redemption thins out and it becomes apparent that we are vastly short on seating.

John isn't well received. We slip out the back door again to sit against a wall and watch as the bouncy castle and entertainments are disassembled. Only the dim light from the cafeteria remains. He looks as if he might cry, though he doesn't, and rejects my offer of a hug.

"I think I'll tweet about it," he says, retrieving his phone from a pocket. He types something and puts it back. I pull out my own phone to read what he's said.

I can't say I honestly understand what John goes through. I may accept him, but I cannot fully imagine what it's like to live in this tiny, conservative town where his very makeup is oft correlated with the pronouncement that he is destined to go to hell.

We return to the cafeteria and find a table near some friends. Courtney arrives soon after, saying she had been for looking for me. I apologize. Though she managed to make nearly double what the rest of us have, it is quite apparent as the auction begins that none of us are destined for glory. The big items quickly go to those with much, much more "crazy cash" at hand and those surrounding me are awash in frustration.

I am long past hilarity and well into delirium as I make my way through my twenty-third hour of being awake. Noises swish and crunch as they pass through me; I blink frequently in confusion and decide to be as quiet as possible as to not make too much of a fool of myself. The end of the event is completely anticlimactic. My thoughts are a haze as Courtney hugs me goodbye, then George, my NIT (Nerdfighter-In-Training).

John and I walk outside together. He looks unbelievably down as I make my way to my mother's car and shifts things in his arms so we can hug goodbye.

"I'm holding you to that movie date," I say.

"Harry Potter 7 Part II?"

"Yes."

"Okay."

Sunday, May 29th, 2011
Home, 5:30 am.
My mom tucks me into bed. My poor phone communes with the wall charger just in time for me to say a few more sleeplessly crazed things to the internet and good morning to future roommate and partner in crazy Laurel, who is up obscenely early to drive some humans to the airport.

I hope in vain that sleep will bring consistency to these moments.

In conclusion.

I was, as you may recall, romantically entangled something like a year ago. It was all very dramatic and ended terribly, with my (loser, ahem) boyfriend dumping me in a text message and refusing to tell me why our supposedly flawless relationship had suddenly gone to hell in a handbasket. This, in the long run, is what broke me. I had to live with the fact that I did not (and in all likelihood would never) know what went wrong.

I have had months to get through this. I have gotten through this, just, and arrived at a much better place than I started from.

Thousands upon thousands of words and countless pep talks following the ordeal, I have learned why my (one and only, slime ball, etc.) boyfriend took it upon himself to break up with me in such an erroneous and disgusting matter. One reason is that he is an idiot.

The other reason is that he is gay.

My first reaction to this news, of course, was something along the lines of "Are you kidding?" Someone should really write a guide to dealing with freaking weird news, as the last few days have been a whirlwind of emotions that have made little to no sense to me. Following the initial shock I deluded myself, briefly, into the idea that I was totally fine with this new information.

I have many friends-who-are-not-straight. It is apparent, in fact, that they somewhat outnumber me. This is hardly a problem, with the exception of the few (quite amusing) moments where I feel alone in my undying heterosexuality. I am highly in favor of queer people existing and leading happy lives.

But I am not okay with this. My ex-boyfriend is homosexual. Why the (excuse my language) fuck was he dating me? That is not okay. While this knowledge has its good points (at least it didn't go on for longer, I clearly have magic gay-making powers, now I know), at this moment I am caught between cursing everything ever and finding the news hilarious yet tragic.

I am positive that I will be fine. I really will. Upon worrying the issue for nearly a year, I feel entitled to this temporary state of unrest.

If I can draw one positive from this experience, it is that I have written some hilarious poetry to go with the situation. For instance: "Life is quite odd / when your ex-boyfriend likes boys / you're such a clod, Dobbin / catapult, ahoy!"

That is, I will admit, one of the less graphic ones. Healing can be fun, no?

Moving forward.

FutureMe is a website that allows you to compose emails and have them sent to you at a predetermined point in the future. I can't recall how exactly I discovered it (such is the rabbit hole that is the internet), but I got on a slight kick last year in the midst of chaos and as host of worries morphed into a funhouse mirror reality.

I received this letter in my inbox today and felt compelled to share. It is, oddly, these words more than most that warm the cockles of my weatherworn heart as I stagnate in the space of time before I graduate* and separate myself from this (irony of ironies) godforsaken tiny Texas town. I may be broken. I may always be broken, but I am truly, truly at the best place emotionally and as a person that I have ever been in my life right now.

I made it.

Saturday, May 22, 2010

This evening I'm meant to go to a high school graduation, and it gets me thinking about what could happen in the next year. It gets me thinking that... so much happens, so quickly, and that in a year I will be graduating, hopefully, and things like that. It gets me thinking that so much is going to happen so fast and stress takes over so easily.

So I hope that this next year is wonderful. I hope that things get BETTER and that you have more hope and things don't fall apart so easily. Crazy may be defined in one case as "full of cracks and flaws," but being a little crazy means you're at least THINKING, right? Normalcy is stupid. You--I, whatever--aren't normal. You--I, whatever--are wonderful.

I hope to work on living that way.

Congratulations on graduating. If you could send me lovely assuring psychic waves from the future it would be helpful.

Yours,
Me, you, I, whatever.

*I will be graduating from tinytowntexas high school on the 28th of this month. Newfound wisdom and funny hat pictures will follow.

Cataloging moments.

Monday.
A senior class meeting takes place in what is deemed the Old Gym—a newer version sits across the street, but this one is still in use. The room radiates decades of sweat; we collect paper after paper from an assembly line of people and fit ourselves into one half of a bleacher. An almost-friend rushes over to sit with me; we puzzle over the forms with slight disdain.

Photo order forms, immunization record information, graduation ceremony code of conduct, senior quotes... all I can think, as our principal booms that this will be one of the "last times we will be together as a class," is that I dearly wish I could skip the rigmarole.

Too bad.

Memory.
The cowboy hat clad boy to my right counts out change for gas money on his shrunken desk. His voice is thick and defiant: "It's either gas or beer, and there's not enough for beer."

Thursday.
I present a PowerPoint on holograms. I’m too annoyed by this class to care that my demeanor is completely unenthusiastic. The end result is adequate, a state I have never really allowed myself before this moment.

I am numb.

Wednesday.
The moments turn to fuzz. I don’t want it to end. I do want it to end. I don’t want it to end…

Thursday.
I am deemed our school's "Outstanding Senior" for English. My mother kvells; John breaks away from his table in the cafeteria to escape parents and sit with me. He tells snide stories on the elite who collect award after award.

Soon after this the moments will collide until all I can think to do is sleep. The morning, when it comes, is only part-comfort.

Memory.
The thin-faced boy in cowboy boots leans back in his desk, pushing away pages of math to say: "Yeah, I'll definitely need this to become a porn star."

Thursday.
I don’t deserve this award. I don’t deserve this award. I don’t deserve this award.

Memory.
I don’t know what you see in me, John texts me, but thank you.

The feeling is mutual.

Thursday.
The school shelters in place due to severe weather. My Physics class disregards this, teacher and students alike popping out the side door to watch the sky spin as water threatens to break loose from the darkness.

“Oh my god, I’ve never seen rain in south Texas before! It’s new!”

Memory.
"Where are you going for the break?"

"Cancun. You can come with us, but we won't talk to you."

Monday.
Students funnel into the cafeteria to collect numbers. Numbers are divided off into tables where we will sit. The girl across from me is, as the alphabet and irony would have it, an enemy. I am hyperbolizing, but she and I have never quite seen eye to eye, and I steer clear of her as a matter of principle. We avert our gazes.

Fifteen minutes into the test a delinquent at the other end of our table feigns crying. The tension is cut; my table-mates and I giggle through layered anxiety. I, for one, am not at all prepared for the standardized test we are meant to complete. Curses run through my head as I think, uncharacteristically, “Well. Four is a good number. Let’s choose that one.”

Wednesday.
“Tell me—” says my boss as I give her my final evaluation sheet, “and you can be honest—have you enjoyed working here this year?”

“I’ve loved working here,” I say, and I mean it. I haven’t the words to express my gratitude.

Memory.

My father laughs. "She can't choose a sandwich, how can she choose a college?"

Friday.
For several weeks the library has attempted to get seniors to fill in cards briefly describing what they plan to do after graduation. Entries have been sparse until now, but today there is a rush.

And all I can think, pinning my peers’ hopes and dreams to a bulletin board outside the library, is that we are all falling apart.

Memory.
"Are you singing Rebecca Black? Don't ever talk again. You've lost that privilege."

Silence.

Friday.
“Thank you for thinking of me, BR,” I tell Ye Old Initials as I pass him in the hallway. “I appreciate it.”

This is not a man to give superfluous compliments.

He nods. “You’re welcome. You deserved it.”

Wednesday.
The principal walks in on my advisory class. Keys jingle too late for us to shuffle, but he simply ignores the number of us clearly finding companionship in our phones.

Rules slip as the end draws near.

Friday.
I’m sorry.

Thursday.
The moments collide, a train wreck I muffle inappropriately.

I have never met my best friend in person. Circumstances make it impossible to meet without conniving. I want, I want, I want… but I can’t.

Thursday.
“Why,” says the boy who talks too fast, “are the people on the news right now not hot? It doesn’t make sense.” He continues for several minutes as I beat questions back at him.

“Stop while you’re ahead,” says the teacher.

“Stop while you’re still alive,” I say.

Friday.
This is the last normally scheduled school day of the year. It will never be the same again.

It will never be the same again.

Friday.
I find John in a hallway to return something to him. Caught in the moving tide of people, I drift as away as words stream from my lips. He follows me. “May I escort you?” he asks.

We link arms and move forward.

A day in the life.

The substitute in my first period class reads aloud a Bible verse in an attempt to make sense of recent news. She apologizes afterward. The bell that marks the passing of class periods has been turned off for the sake of AP testing and the weather dips into the fifties, which would leave the student population off-kilter on any normal day. This isn't any normal day. Talk crawls up the walls only to drop into our laps, sink its teeth into our delicate flesh and turn us in circles until we are dizzy with constantly regurgitating what we have been told to believe.

"I don't want to glorify death..." "I'm glad he's gone..." "I hear there was..." "Yeah..."

I walk to the next class with an almost-friend. "How are you?" She isn't fine. Family issues, worries. Senior year is more slip n' slide than anything, leaving bruises that will outlast any thrill involved. I wish for words.

In advisory there is a fire drill; I stand shivering at the fringes of John's group until they pity me and I join their penguin-like huddle against the wind.

"What, a gay guy singing you straight love songs? That's normal."

"Yeah," I say, "but you aren't there when I cry afterward because no straight guy would ever do that."

"I'll be straight for two minutes, I swear." He launches into recalling a movie he swears turned him straight for two hours.

Here are some tired words: I want to believe in people. I want to believe that the jokes pertaining to recent news don't exist. Because there are good things, too: as the fire drill ends and I double back to my locker for a sweater, John touches my arm and says "I love you."

"I love you, too."

In Physics we are assigned a research project. I couldn't tell you one thing I've learned in the class this year. With fourteen school days until we are out of this place (I know, I put together the library display), it is difficult for me to muster any enthusiasm for this brand of learning.

"Sir," asks one of my classmates, "when your kids go to college, will you cry?"

"Yes, tears of joy." His voice tells me the departure will be the happy part.

catlovingmathteacher's cat has cancer, which shakes me more than I would wish to admit in mixed company. I give him my condolences as class ends and he tells me more; the cat is fifteen years old and he bought her for seventy-five dollars, which works out to something like one cent per day for as long as he's had her.

"So, worth it?"

"Oh, I don't know." He grins and we part ways.

When I finish my lunch (peanut butter and jelly, an orange) in the covered area attached to the cafeteria I usually occupy, I move away from the unusual (though not shocking) chill to find a space in the uncrowded cafeteria. My sister comes with me in an unnecessary act of chivalry and we sit at an empty table in the back corner of the room, which in years past was the auditorium and lays claim to almost slanted linoleum as a happy result of the change.

My sister laughs as she sketches something. "I'm drawing something really funny, and I find it amusing," she offers as explanation.

"Okay."

The substitute in Sociology laments our education system before playing the documentary on the subject. I bite my lip because, I apologize, but this isn't really my fault. I try, I try, I try and it all seems for nothing. I say something. My palms sweat; he half-agrees with me, but it isn't much consolation.

"The solution to the education problem: guess on whose shoulders it will fall?" cheers the substitute.

"Us?"

"Ya'll!"

I do what is asked of me, and in tinytowntexas this is more than enough, but I am not engaged. There is such a pull for excellence in education, yet I'm clueless. To try my best is to hit a brick wall over and over again as my peers stand back to watch with bemused expressions. And I keep doing it because you're supposed to, but my enthusiasm wanes until -

My skin crawls as the documentary plays, because what can I do besides sit here and press these uncertainties against paper?

As the class ends and I slip out the door, the substitute tells me to have a good day. I fork over my "you too, sir" with as little tension as I can muster.

"Katherine's a sophomore, she's just really smart. We all cheat off of her."

I flash my senior-level ID at eye level for the English substitute to see. "They try."

"You know," says the substitute to the ruffians, "when you come back here, the only ones who will remember you are the ones you tormented."

Ye Old Initials returns from proctoring an AP test and tells us of days of old, of when the school's (then) three wings were separated, there was no air conditioning and racial tension ran rampant. He's been in this classroom for decades.

"Did you ever date one of your students?"

"No comment." Years and years ago he was married to one of them.

"Are we going to talk about Osama?" asks someone in my Government class as attendance is taken.

"Yeah, for a little bit."

"He can kiss my ass, 'cause I aint doing shit," mumbles the girl who sits behind me.

The inevitable interjection: "THEY KILLED OBAMA?"

I didn't sleep well last night; the day hangs on me. I'm tired of hearing what my generation is expected to accomplish. I pick at my hangnails. I have never set my head down in a class, yet now it is more tempting than ever.

"There's a difference between crazy and stupid, never forget that."

All I know is to keep going.