I have this inability to throw anything away. I have textbooks and notebooks and broken pencils and pockets that I ripped off from my best friends school uniform. All of the things I'm finding are transporting me back to a different summer, the five-month summer from two years ago. I feel like I've come full circle. That summer was the one right before I left for TAMS and I was clinging on to my friends and the last couple months of my life the way it had been. Who knew that for the better part of the next two years, I would still be clinging on just the same?
All of this stuff makes me smile but it also makes me so sad. I'm flipping through every notebook, ripping out the pages that are covered in our doodles and conversations written in code and wondering if we EVER paid attention in class. There are so many notes we passed, cataloging every event in our tumultuous teenage life. Some of the things we talk about, I don't even remember them. Most of the codenames and inside jokes too. Who the hell is coconut boy? Why did we think Nike backpacks were so funny? Why are whole pages of my notebook covered with the word JUICY?
There are some things I read and don't WANT to remember too. I'm not going to embarass myself by talking about them lol =) (but I'm sure you have a pretty good idea)
All of it seems so long ago. I'm recalling all of these things that I had forgotten. I'm surprised by who liked who and the people I was friends with because all of it is SO vastly different from my present reality lol.
I'm also surprised by the sheer volume of poetry I used to write back then. Its like rhymes were falling out of fingers because they're scribbled everywhere, between the lines in my textbooks, in the margin of my practical record, all over the pages of my notebooks, its actually pretty cool =) It kind of makes me angry that I used to be so elegant with my writing and now I can barely pick out the words to make this post coherent.
School was so much fun.
I found broken pieces of a test tube from chemistry lab.
The 'Book' that my best friend wrote for me proving that Zebras are actually WHITE with black stripes lol.
Pages of fantasy fiction that we used to write.
Drawings of mostly shirtless boys lol.
Cheat sheets for Telugu class which never worked because I always got yelled at anyway.
Pieces of the birthday tiara.
Mini wax penis-looking things from homescience.
Alllll of the frantic chemistry diagrams that Nithya drew as she tried to teach me in the bus on the way to school the day of our pre-board.
Random bits of chalk from our chalk fights.
The magical pink permanent marker that wouldn't come off of your skin for four days.
All the stupid signs we nicked from the walls.
Omg that one chemistry notebook of mine that STILL reeks of cologne.
Dried rose petals scattered through the pages of my SAT prep book from the time he left flowers on my desk and I had to shove them in my book so nobody would see them.
The things that make me the saddest though are the zillion notes all folded up and crumpled, covered with his uber-messy handwriting and drawings of heartpeople and cars and the symbol. I read them and I cry because they are so cheesy and sweet and adoring and I used to get them on a daily basis and think nothing of it. If someone wrote me even one note like that now, I would probably feel overwhelmed.
I miss being 16 and having my largest concern being how to get out of physics class so I could play hide and seek.
