fifteen hours and forty nine minutes from now, high school will be a thing of the past. one more convoluted memory to be twisted and warped by time.

it hits me in small waves. like those warm watery frills lapping at the shores of the Gulf, surges of feeling wash over me and leave, wash and leave, life is over and life is beginning, i can't wait and i'm filled with dread. my stomach does flip flops for each passing emotion: a cartwheel of excitement, a somersault of despair, a twist and churn for each new realization.

i am obsessed with childhood. but denise makes a good point. growing up has its perks right along with its downfalls.

most little girls spend all their time pretending they are older than they are. wanting so much to look more mature, hoping against hope to be mistaken for someone older, involving themselves in complex games concerning their perception of the adult world.

admittedly, i was always a little odd, but i did play these games too, and often.

now i have passed nearly every point documented in hollywood as the greatest moments in a person's life: sixteenth birthday, senior year, senior prom, afterparties, and now all that would be left is graduation.

i am eighteen years old. i am a legal adult. i can vote, i can gamble, i can smoke, i can get a tattoo or piercing, or anything else for that matter, without parent permission. i can drive past midnight. i can rent a hotel room in new york. i can die for my country. i can be held legally responsible for my own actions.

on the morning of may 9 i felt funny because i didn't feel any different. eighteen still feels awkward and wrong on my tongue. seventeen already sounds young but adulthood still feels far away and distant and boring. right now feels like the spontinaety one can only find in limbo. fifteen hours and seventeen minutes from now will be the first time since i was two years old that i will not be owned by any institution. it feels good. liberating. unnerving. exciting.

reflecting on the events leading to my still-crisp eighteenth year, i can feel The Awkward Stage finally begin to lose its iron grip on me.

i am learning to deal with things. with people. with emotions.

stumbling through high school i've learned things about myself and my beliefs and my innermost gut feelings i never wanted to know before.

i'm coming to terms with my faults, my many insecurities, my obsessiveness, my egoism, my fears, my defense mechanisms, my indecisiveness. but these are things i've always had and always known, and always built walls around, always shut my eyes stubbornly tight to block them out of sight. i never did let go of that carebears-instilled idea that if one held hands and believed hard enough, bad things would go away.

more important are the difficult things. the things i never admitted to possessing, the things i built so many walls around that even i could not tell if they were there or not. the things i thought i had suppressed into nonexistence. i am coming to terms with my aggressiveness, my jealousy, my need for attention, my refusal to deal with emotions, my cynicism, my romanticism, my entirely girly side, the existence of my sexuality.

i am trying to learn to accept my worth as a person.

high school has jaded me to the point at which i disregard both authority and the masses as i hack blindly through the jungle in an attempt to carve my own path. but the journey has, for the most part, been aided by the people i care about. through the great times and the terrible ones, when we were there for each other and when we weren't, as we all learned and grew and shaped and struggled on our own knotted, double-backing quests for the Answers, we taught each other life and lemons and everything inbetween.

my personality has remained the same, everyone's always does, but my ideals and my aspirations and everything down to the way i carry myself and look others in the eye has changed drastically from when i was twelve and fourteen and even fifteen and sixteen to now.

every aspect of life changes you, mars you in some way. eventually we are a patchwork of scars and the stories attached to them. i'm proud of my battle wounds and the experiences and people, good and bad, that left them there. especially the people.

high school has been a crazywild ride, but i'm ready for it to be over. i'm ready for the next big adventure, the next slice of experience to expand my mind and my arsenal of stories to be retold or kept close to my heart to rest, dormant, until i need it again.

i'm ready for this last day.

fourteen hours and nineteen minutes. we're through here.

school's OVER.

~~~~~

"Ah, but you were not looking, were you? For I have already gone."

ink :: graphite