Friday, May 15, 2015

Real Talk - So this was high school

So this was High School.

This is it.

The end.

This is what we have been waiting for.


I sat down to write about high school. The words came but they all came out brown and bitter, probably because that's all school was to me then. Sophomore year was a dark one.

I sat down to write about high school again, as a Junior and the words came but differently this time. It was hard. I still hated it. Darkness and disgust still dripped from my fingers and stained the page as I wrote but I was humming a different tune. Because even though School was still trying to kill me, I found something else there. Or rather it found me. Something bright. I tried to push it aside because I was too busy fighting with School to pay attention to it. But it kept coming back. And soon I realized that it was fighting School with me. So in an act of further rebellion against School, I embraced it. Not it. Them. My class, my posse, my friends, my gang, my peeps, my nerds, my jocks, my cheerleaders, my artists, my musicians, my geeks, my freaks, my dancers, my lifters, my stoners, my shredders, hipsters, tall, short, rich, poor, all of them. My friends. They were all fighting the same fight as me.


Now here I am. Sitting down again to write about High School. Perhaps for the last time.
And in hindsight I can see it all. School was a mask. Underneath all of the layers of geometry, synonyms, history and gravitation equations was the heart of Lone Peak. Underneath the mask I found the purpose of high school.

Doorsteps, dance parties, proms, preferences, friends, best friends, boyfriends, girlfriends and let's-just-be-friends, birthday parties, slumber parties, all night parties, just-cause parties, camp outs, peel outs, In-N-Out's, burgers, pizza with friends, hot dogs at games, root beer pong, ping pong and sting pong, ball games, screaming to the radio with the windows down, cruising down the road as our hearts beat to the music of high school.

To the students of Lone Peak: It's not the structure of the school, not the number of gyms or the quality of programs offered that makes our school World Class. It's the Class. It's the student body. It's all of you. And I just wanted to thank the students of Lone Peak for accepting me as an outsider. I love you.

The purpose of high school is not to fill our heads with polynomials and lit terms but to fill our hands with other hands, to fill our hearts with people we love, our memories with familiar faces and our eyes with the big, bright, beautiful future that awaits the imaginative.
And if you think for a second that high school is about earning a diploma then you've missed high school. 

Our high school musical is about to end.

And the time has come for the bass to drop and for us to dance as hard as we can to the familiar pulse of Lone Peak for two more weeks.

And then it's all over.

Then comes the part where we scatter in 900 different directions.

Maybe someday in the future I'll sit down to write about high school again. I won't remember what I learned in math. I won't remember my science teacher's name. But I will remember the golden days of high school and the people I spent them with.
I will remember you.

So this was high school.




5 comments:

  1. Yes. Yes to all of it. Just yes. You've been one of my favorites to follow. Thanks for being such a nice guy to everybody, I think you definitely got the right things out of high school!

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  2. Well said, Kai. My favorite line was the one about HSM. We're each starring in our own high school musical, and now it's over.

    Thanks for playing your guitar and ukulele in class. You are one of the good ones.

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  3. Yes i love all of this. Like i had chills the entire time i was reading this and i know that was just because it all rang so true.

    Amazing post. Thank you.

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  4. I loved this so much. Thank you for sharing this. I have loved following you. You have me chills. I agree with all that. You are so so good!!

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  5. boyfriends, girlfriends, and lets-just-be-friends.
    YES UGH this was a great wrap up of high school. and i gotta agree with nelson that hsm line was perfect timing. love this blog and you are amazing!

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