Unscheduled: Learning to Navigate the In-Between My Senior Year of High School
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On the morning of the first day of senior year, I woke up to my golden metal twin-bell alarm clock, the hammer frantically caroming between bells. It was early. I prefer waking up early. Besides my aversion to being in a hurry, mornings are a sacred time, and enjoying that and the sunrise, free from concern, makes a considerable difference throughout the day. I examined my shoulder bag, which had been shoved carelessly into the corner of my closet at the end of my junior year and neglected, to make sure I had everything I’d need for the day. At some point, while digging for who-knows-what, I asked myself “wtf am I doing?” before emptying the bag into the trash, grabbing a box of Cheez-Its, a liter of Coke, and my iPod, and dropping them at the bottom. I cooked myself eggs, scrambled with cheese, and added milk for fullness and fluffiness. I slowly ate while the birds began to wake up with the sun before leaving the house. I didn’t start parking in the teacher's lot on the first day, but it wasn’t long before I made the shift. Ah, my last year of high school, how blissfully ignorant I was about merely getting older.
Today, I can’t think about my past experiences without wondering how a particular interaction objectively played out. It’s a fascinating thought experiment: exploring how we experience a moment; reflecting on what we thought at that moment and later about that moment; how we felt, how our feelings unwittingly evolved, and how those thoughts and feelings carry into our subsequent interactions with the same people and others. How much of who we are-are we because we reacted and continued to react in one completely unconscious way in a single moment that we misrepresented entirely? I might have had a very impressionable experience that was likely regarded as completely different from others who shared the same experience; and how a person might question your experience because it doesn’t fit within the periphery of their experience of the same moment. This thought experiment isn’t something you want to dwell on for too long, obviously, but an exercise to expand your purview, especially looking back on those formidable years, it can be one way to lessen that foreboding midlife crisis. And to, you know, not be an emotional puddle, sludging through life with surface-level echoes. Senior year should be an opportunity for us passing into adulthood to learn how to take control of our choices, but unfortunately, that’s not always what it is.
Anyway, I discovered later that, while I was rummaging through my shoulder bag that morning, my friend Eric was removing everything lingering from junior year in his backpack and replacing it with a bed pillow. This was the general attitude that we had during our senior year. Eric did not attempt to feign his indifference; in every class we shared his backpack was on his desk and he was comfortably asleep, lying on and clasping his camouflaged pillow. The only effort I remember making my senior year—an effort that Clayton participated in—was our grade in Government. We were competing for the highest grade in our Government class. It wasn’t a particularly challenging effort—except for the back and forth with Clayton—because the rest of the class was focused more on making our Government teacher laugh so hard she cried. The things that were said in that class didn’t age well. I won’t include them here. Nevertheless, the challenge inspired enough intrigue to want to be fully informed as-, and as distanced as possible from our present government's ongoing midlife crisis. Politics used to intrigue me, but now its phantom influence on our lives frustrates me with such a forceful passion. Politics is surface-level bullshit; check in with yourself, reevaluate your behaviors, and focus on reasonable policy, not blanket-for-the-sake-of ism’s.
Something that wasn’t exactly new our senior year but was widely protested was that the new administration wouldn’t allow anyone off campus, even for lunch, even as seniors; my friends and I would eat at a fairly secluded table in the cafeteria, some side room. The local schools were ordering pizzas from Little Caesars, the cafeteria sold pizza by the slice. I almost always had two slices of pizza and a Coke. We would sit there eating, competing in an ongoing turn-based “Your Mom” match—a match that, as far as I’m concerned, Colin triumphed in after a single notable Your Mom joke that sure as hell didn’t age well with time. I won’t repeat that here either. Every day, after eating and our bouts of uncontrollable laughter, we moseyed to our spot in the courtyard next to the auxiliary gym and played hacky sack, every single day. People would come and go, joining our game for a few minutes before going about their day; some interlopers were welcome and others weren’t, but we never stopped the game—unless the sack was lost to the gymnasium’s top. Some roofers I’m sure tapped out one afternoon with several years’ worth of Christmas Eve stocking stuffers. You’re welcome.
Two friends and I left the basketball team our senior year. My high school set aside class periods for most sports, so while we had practices after school, we also had a class where we dressed, ran drills, and worked out between bells. The class was an easy “A.” The school applied block scheduling, which meant we would visit all eight of each semester’s classes once every two days. The basketball class was scheduled for one period per day, so two of my eight classes were basketball. That’s how it goes with sports in states like Texas—even sports that don’t rhyme with shortfall. The school and the community praised the basketball coaches, especially as my graduating class came of age; we had a good team despite our coaches. The title “coach” implies a position of guidance and encouragement for everyone willing to be coached, our coaches coached only a small handful of players who were already talented, not talented enough to play beyond high school, but those who were talented enough to play varsity without being coached. The three of us got tired of feeling irrelevant.
When we left the team, we needed to replace two class periods. All three of us scheduled a Study Hall. For the second misplaced class, my friends scheduled “Latin for Professions.” I didn’t want to sit through whatever that was, and none of the available courses interested me, so I pensively didn’t replace my second vacant class period with anything. In doing so I inadvertently discovered a loophole in the system. When you drop a class but are never officially registered in another there’s no record of you dropping the class, and you continue to receive a grade from the class you dropped; however, you’re no longer on the class roster or any class roster. I wandered around campus for seventy-five minutes every other day, which seemed a much better way to spend my time than to sit through whatever the fuck Latin for Professions could be (I was almost 18). I like learning, and while my interest in learning has developed throughout adulthood it was still there when I was eighteen even if buried and dormant. I was merely interested in learning only what I was interested in learning, and I wasn’t interested in learning about the relationship between English and Latin. At least not at 18.
My high school campus was shaped like a horseshoe. The two-quarters extending from campus, that prong to the heel, are comparable to my high school’s two entrances; each entrance had a little security hut, and two Ol’ men who enjoyed reading sat patiently inside. These monitors tracked the comings and goings of people coming onto and leaving campus. No students were allowed to leave unless they had express written permission. I discovered that as long as I didn’t take advantage of my situation and only attempted it two and perhaps three times a week, I could pull up to the hut on the side of campus with the teacher's parking lot—by this time I was parking in the teacher’s lot daily—and strike up a conversation with the Ol’ man inside. I got to know Ol’ man’s interests and as long as he was engaged, he would forget he hadn’t seen a permission slip and let me drive away, especially when we talked about psychology. I’ve forgotten many things, but I’ll never forget the look on his face as I waved, passing him on my way back to campus. He wore the expression of a villain from some old comic book-turned-TV series yelling, “Curses! Foiled again!” while shaking his fist into the sky. And then the next day I would do it again.
One afternoon, while exploring campus, I stumbled into the gymnasium building and wandered into the wing dedicated to health and physical science classes. There, I discovered a room filled with fellow students who, like me, were skipping class, though not on as epic a scale. They had found a secluded spot, knowing the room was usually empty, where they could play cards undisturbed. There we played several hands of Egyptian Rat Screw before a stray teacher discovered us and dragged us to the administration building. We never knew what she was doing wandering around campus, and it never occurred to us to ask. A few minutes later, seven or eight teacher-led students were single-filing through the courtyard and into the main offices where we were told to stand against the wall outside the vice-principal's office. During my freshman year, I was made to believe that Dr. Jubela was terrifying. A large man with no discernable smile, Dr. J was not someone whose attention you wanted to rouse and yet I managed to provoke him often throughout the years. I eventually discovered that underneath his indurate buildup collected by years of unyielding teens, Dr. J was little more than a teddy bear; a quiet, caring man with a title and a little too much free time.
Standing against the wall outside his office, Dr. Jubela would address us individually and deliver our punishments. That was his mistake (seeing us one at a time). I was standing fifth, maybe sixth in line, the second in line was with the doctor. The first had come and was led away to some dungeon beneath the band and drama building, and no one ever saw or heard from them again. I had so much more to lose than the rest of these people. My situation was more dire, so I was nervous and looking for a way out. At that moment a small group of students walked past us and toward the administration building’s rear door. They were laughing and flaunting their freedoms. I saw them approach and scanned the office for prying eyes because I knew this was an opportunity. As the group of students passed the wretched lot of us in line against the wall, I slipped within like sand between fingers, merging into the passersby and disappearing into the small sea of faceless bodies. I walked out the rear door and was quickly enveloped by the sweet smell of freedom that once again lifted my senses. I walked bullishly at pace and once I hit the tree line I ran as fast and as far as I could, the wind tingling the corner of my eyes as crystals formed at the seams. I felt like Tim Robbins in The Shawshank Redemption or Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music, there was a victory in the bounce in my step as I wiped the crusty ball of goo granulating from my eye, twirling like a dervish under the bluest sky.
For nine weeks, every other day for seventy-five minutes I managed to evade capture, exploring my high school campus. And where I sometimes enjoy my freedom off-campus: reading under a tree by the river, taking advantage of an extended lunch, driving around, listening to music, and always watching for familiar cars. It did get more difficult to sneak off campus. ‘The Ol’ man down by the quarter’ was growing suspicious (Curses!). So, I started limiting my off-campus days to one, maybe two a week, but even that I knew was pushing my luck. I often walked the halls of the A building—I sometimes crashed a science class a friend was in, the teacher, Mr. Locke welcomed me; I assumed he thought if I was there, I was at least being supervised. I never crashed Mr. Locke’s class for long, coming and going as I saw fit. He asked, of course, where I was supposed to be, and I told him simply that the period’s teacher knew I was there and didn’t mind. I was that period’s teacher, and I didn’t mind, and there was no way Mr. Locke could have known. Mr. Locke’s classroom was in the A building. I had spent most of my time in the A building as a student, we have a way of spending our time where we feel the most comfortable. The A building was also where I was most likely to get caught. The high school was made up of at least a dozen buildings scattered about the crescent (of the horseshoe), the A building was one of the most high-traffic in the school.
I was sometimes evading a small handful of teachers simultaneously. If I noticed a teacher coming and going, I would slip into another building and happen upon another teacher coming and going, prying and questioning. The key to evasion is always to look like you belong and that you’re supposed to address whatever you’re addressing. Here are a handful of resources to consider if you find yourself in a similar position:
- 1.) Follow Basic Rules: never run or speed walk, these actions draw too much negative attention and invite questions.
- 2.) Do Your Homework (in a manner of speaking): familiarize yourself with the different rooms, knowing which teachers are assigned to which rooms, and what they teach can be an invaluable tool. Position yourself sitting outside a classroom, the statement, “I was ‘disrupting Physics,’” holds tremendous weight (*pro tip, play the part, use air quotations).
- 3.) Be Present: wave and acknowledge every teacher you pass. Guilty people try to avoid attention, learn to draw attention to yourself when needed, and avoid attention when unwanted.
- 4.) Stick to A Schedule: never camp at any one place for seventy-five minutes, but never be continuously on the move, either. There are certain parts of campus, and at certain times, that are busier than others (e.g. the cafeteria and adjacent buildings in the minutes before or after lunch, the several minutes after and before a bell), so plant yourself somewhere for longer than might seem comfortable but not long enough to draw unwanted attention.
- 5.) Apply A Healthy Use of Props: stash your belongings somewhere safe, except for a yellow college-ruled notepad and a pen, and when appropriate, such as when a teacher passes nearby, scribble notes about the architecture of one of the buildings, a nearby Oak tree, or sketch the Oak tree (i.e. be engaged w/ your work).
After almost nine weeks, a Spanish teacher stopped me in the hallway and asked where I was supposed to be. I explained that I was heading to the restroom and when she requested a hall pass. I told her “My teacher doesn’t issue them.” Nearly 30 minutes later, the same Spanish teacher caught me again, this time in the courtyard, and again she asked where I was supposed to be. I claimed I was returning to class. She decided to escort me. I deliberately led her on a detour around campus. I was unwilling to accept that my goose was cooked. As we walked, I processed every rational option I could and realized my only hope was Mr. Locke. I led the Spanish teacher into the A building, a decision I immediately regretted. There was no way she would allow me to walk through the doors of that Physics class unattended; she would be following me in and speaking to Mr. Locke. It occurred to me that Mr. Locke might get into trouble, and I wasn’t willing to let someone else be negatively affected by my decisions—especially Mr. Locke. I accepted my fate and stopped walking. I turned to address the Spanish teacher, confessing, “Honestly, I don't have anywhere to be right now,” after leading her on my wild goose chase for at least five minutes, she escorted me to Dr. J’s office.
In Dr. J’s office, I explained that I had dropped basketball and enrolled in a study hall, but besides Study Hall, nothing interested me. In the meantime, Dr. J combed through my class records on his computer, and then we discovered the loophole. We talked for a while. Dr. Jubela seemed more interested in getting to know me than he wanted to understand the situation. I think he was impressed (like any rational 18-year-old kid would). We agreed that enrolling in a class this late in the semester wasn’t practical, so we brainstormed what to do with me during my idle seventy-five minutes every other day. One of my suggestions included doing nothing, “Let’s play the semester out unchanged and see how it goes.” He countered with the idea of OCS. I was adamantly against OCS, but eventually, he sold me on the idea. We agreed that I would go to On Campus Suspension (OCS) for the period every other day. And that he would provide my coursework. OCS felt more like an office building than a classroom, complete even with cubicles, a water dispensing unit, and the stale smell of spent Lysol-infused carpeting. But I liked it there. Dr. J’s coursework was like an overview of banal high school comprehension. By the end of the semester, I felt comfortable with the knowledge I had retained throughout the previous four years. I also knew that I would never work in an office building.
There are of course occurrences and incidents that occurred my senior year that should be included in this essay, unfortunately, I don’t recall most of them in part because the following few years were…weird. I got stuck in a sort of shameful spiral, one that I didn’t realize, until recently, repeated itself because thinking about it made me uncomfortable and I never wanted to explore my discomfort and move forward. And it’s insane when you think about how unless we have otherwise consciously made an effort, we remain, principally, the same people we were in high school. We forge our identities both willfully and unwittingly throughout these four years and then formalize our identities in college. We generally don’t like giving this reality credit; more people than not will argue that they perceive themselves differently as adults than they did as teenagers because they have different hobbies, they spend their time differently, and no one wants to believe they’re the same person they were as a teenager. However, how we process information, what we choose to think about, and how we act and react, the underlying behaviors we established in high school generally remain the same throughout our lives unless we consciously make an effort to change our involuntary thought processes, habits, and reactions.
As my senior year of high school ended my reality began to spiral into what I liked to believe for a while was a relatively controlled chaos. Overwhelmed and emotionally unsettled, I had little choice but to confront my discomfort head-on, plunging into the unknown hoping to emerge more balanced on the other side…somewhere; of course, I didn’t know any of this, and so I didn’t. I didn’t confront anything, I avoided confrontation, but more regrettably I avoided making decisions, taking conscious steps forward in an intended direction. Instead, I allowed things to happen to me, I didn’t make decisions, because I didn’t want to confront the reality of those decisions, at least the social and emotional manifestation of those decisions. What propelled me forward were the consequences of avoiding hurting another person’s feelings, acknowledging another person’s feelings, and a sudden fear of the unknown.
Looking back, my senior year was a paradoxical blend of freedom and stagnation. As I evaded authority and explored the campus, I was, metaphorically, searching for direction and purpose (right, I mean, that sounds pretty good?), feeling the discomfort of releasing one life for the rapidly approaching self-regulated uncertainty of another. Dr. J's guidance and the OCS experience helped me recognize the importance of embracing uncertainty and taking conscious steps forward (even though I didn’t). I didn't confront my discomfort head-on at the time, but reflecting on those experiences has allowed me to grow and acknowledge the person I was—and still am—becoming. I enjoyed high school. I wasn’t popular, I wasn’t a bully—I don’t think—from what I remember about my experience is that I celebrated being alive, for the most part. At least that’s the feeling I’ve nurtured over the years. I graduated in the spring of 2003, there have been two reunions since graduation, and I didn’t go to either. I wanted to go to both. When my ten-year reunion crept up behind me, I was living in New Mexico and I was in a bad, very controlling relationship, and she wouldn’t let me go. During my twenty-year reunion, I was living in Montana, in the middle of a considerable life transition, the same transition that inspired me to start writing this series. I’ll address both events chronologically as my timeline progresses.
Before ending this essay, there are people who for whatever reason have left a lasting impression on me throughout childhood (and particularly throughout my schooling), many played only brief, limited roles in my life but have nevertheless impressed upon me something (good, bad, memorable, etc.) that I’ve carried with me. I’ll list several because it seems arbitrarily appropriate: Clayton, Heather, Eric, Sarah, Rick, Alex, Colin, Lindsay, Ben, Christina, Harrison, Courtney, Jason, Kara, Tim, Marina, Jimmy, Hayley, Tyler, Mary Beth, Chris, Emily, Cody, Tara, Ben, Jenna, Jason, Kim, Matt, Ashley, Cody, Lauren, Troy, Carley, Derek, Laura, David, Pamela, Ian, Melissa, Jordan, Rachel, Austin, Kaelin, Rey, Virginia, Stephen, Heather, Doug, Tiffany, Jeff, Megan, Brandon, Sydney, Trustin, Amy, Taylor, Jenny, Calvin, Kelly, Chase, Jenny, Sean, and Effie. This next stage of my life, after high school, and avoiding adulthood, was largely transitional (I suppose it is for everyone, but…) I stumbled through it in a self-sabotaging way. And then, uncertain of how to express everything I was experiencing, and without explanation, I slipped away from it all in the night and never really stopped going.