The Truth About High School

It took me five and a half years, and two different locations, to finish high school. Good lord. You’d think I liked it there.

My bestest’s oldest daughter, KC, officially graduated on Thursday evening. ( I have decided to spare her the embarrassment of posting the very bad pictures I took.)

This is the trip with the little mid-October snowstorm that we drove through. It was worth the drive. We don't live nearby and getting together for these events isn't always easy. When this kid was born eighteen years ago, she blew my mind. I was seventeen years old when one of my closest friends became a mother. It was love at first sight. Gorgeous, smart, funny. I could tell all of these things by the time she was four months old, I kid you not. And now the Adult in Question is in college, which I never doubted she would do, and this in turn means that I am a lot older now than I was eighteen years ago.

This brings back memories for me.

It was the 80s, and we thought we were world wise and sophisticated. We'd finally eradicated the scourge of bell bottom pants. We'd discovered mousse and black eyeliner.

Ours was a rural high school. We lived close enough that my bus ride was only about fifteen minutes, but some kids from farther off towns and farms were on the bus for an hour. Because the building itself was in the country, we were all bussed. Some kids from the closest town walked but once the hard weather hit, that was over. Of course, when dealing with farm kids, who simply do not walk to get anywhere, worthiness is proved with a driver’s license. Driving to school was one of the rites of passage.

Not all of you may be aware of what small town, farm kids, hick kids, are all about. The prevalent opinion is that city kids are cooler, and tougher, and smarter. That may be true in the big cities, but whatever. Hick kids have more to prove. We smoked more, we drank more, we fought more. We set fires in the dumpsters and smoked joints at lunch hour.

There were just as many clean cut and wholesome kids, and I should have been one of them considering where I came from, being the pastor’s granddaughter and all that, but I gravitated to the rebels. We were a tough bunch, some of us, and really got our backs up if some city kid made a crack about the farmer school. I’m not totally proud of this, by the way, especially since that school has now become notorious as a good place to buy herion, or meth. I'm disappointed but I’m not surprised.

I hated school.

It could been because of that still unofficially diagnosed Attention Deficit Thing that ruined my educational experience. I’ve spent a lifetime being confused about my own intelligence. I’m pretty sure I’m not stupid, but if I’m not, then why have I always felt so stupid? I don’t take instructions or directions very well. I can repeat it back and then seconds later it’s gone. Empty headed. Blank.

Of course it could be from all those headfirst dives off of ponies in my childhood...but I’m fine, really. Can’t you tell I’m fine?
What was I talking about? Oh yes- school. My biggest problem, all through my long years of highschool, was that those pain in the butt classes kept getting in the way of my social life.

I had things to do, and it was a real momentum killer to have these classes interrupting me all day. I had friends to keep up with. I had hair to spray for the first two years, and copious amounts of eyeliner to fix at every opportunity. I had to take time to maintain the evolving work of art that was my locker. Sometimes I had to take time to chill under the stairwell with my cassette walkman. And the most important thing of all: there were boys who had to be flirted with.

Of course I didn’t let a thing like English class stop me from flirting. That was one thing that could be done anywhere, any time. Even in detention, flirting could be accomplished. I only had three boyfriends in high school, and never all at the same time. But I loved the guys.

My marks were across the map. I aced English. I barely studied and pulled off mid 70s in the advanced, university preparation level. But it took me three years to get my required Grade 10 general level math.

Math class was like burning alive. On a bed of nails. With slivers under my fingernails. While chewing on tinfoil. As a drop of water fell on my forehead every hour. Oh sweet living hell, do you have any idea how torturous math class was?
I had to find strategies to survive. Going to math class drunk a few times helped.

One funny day, when I was slightly warmed over and tipsy, I was wearing a long strand of beads around my neck. It was ridiculously long; I could have jumped rope with this monstrosity. I think I was wearing tight black leggings, and my fake converse sneakers, and a big white shirt from the men’s department at the thrift store. Possibly even my grandpa’s brown fedora hat. I was so stylin. The very cute blond Metallica fan who sat in front of me got out of his seat while the teacher’s back was turned and slowly pulled the beaded necklace off of me. (I loved that.) He went back to his seat. The pile of beads in his left hand jingled quietly until the next time the teacher took her eyes off of us. He leaned back sideways in his desk, opened his mouth, and slowly dropped the strand of beads into his mouth. In my drunken state I snorted out a giggle,and I remember clasping my hands over my mouth as tears leaked out of the corners of my eyes. When his mouth was full of beaded necklace, the last loop was hanging over his bottom lip, and he turned around and looked at me.
I lost it. I fell out of my seat. I was on the floor, shaking with silent laughter.

I don’t remember if the teacher even noticed.

Eventually he got up, came back over to me, and ceremoniously draped the beads around my neck, overlapping the strands until the whole slobbery mess clung to my chest.

I have no idea where that kid ended up. I just know that for about ten drunken math class minutes, I was madly in love with him.

I went to a different school halfway through. I was sick and missed the first half of Grade 11. In order to catch up, I got shipped into the nearest city for the second semester of the year; our school was on a three term system. This city school also had an “eco room” where no perfumes, cleaners, or other allegens were allowed. Clearly I was done with the smoking and drugs phase of my life. I had to ride the small bus to school with all the retarded kids who went to the special school. I can’t tell you how many times I got told on the bus how pretty I was. You very pretty.


The new school was a labyrinth of halls and entries and doorways, plopped down in the old part of town. This was the place where my friend Biddie, who would soon become the mother of the Adult in Question, introduced me to the guy I’d marry a few years later...and that’s a story deserving of its own time. Then, at 16, I was at a crossroads already. The partying was slowed considerably. I had to get healthy. I was surrounded by these city kids who were so...detached. They weren’t rough and tough. They were coool. Unaffected. Unruffled. Hip.

I was not hip. I’ve never been hip. I’ve been close to cool, I think, but I’m generally a mess. Always was. I laughed too loud, I gawked too much.

I went back to the big sprawling school across the road from the dairy farm but still didn’t finish. I had to go back to the city school to get the rest of my credits. This time I was in better shape; I drove myself to school in my mom’s Chevette. Still not hip. Still a hick. A slightly crazy and loud obnoxious little hick.

I have a few regrets about those years. I wish I hadn’t gotten so far behind on compulsory credits that I had to quit taking drama class. I wish I’d gotten a tutor for my math instead of going in for teacher help at lunch, which was a monumental waste of time. I wish I’d kissed a couple more of those boys, just to be able to look back and know that I did. I wish I’d known that the cute boy who gently tormented me in science class wouldn’t live to see the end of the school year.

I lived it, and it was part of my formation. I would never go back, but I hold all of those memories and cherish them, all of them, even the painful ones.

So I watched my best friend’s oldest daughter cross the stage and get her little rolled up fake diploma, while my husband held up the whole show to take a photo in the bad lighting. I held back the tears. I sat with the two younger daughters and whooped and hollered.

I don’t remember my graduation ceremony. I don’t even remember if I went. I don’t think I did.

Doesn’t matter. Anything I needed to know from high school is still in my head.