I was literally getting
dizzy
in the car as we drove home.
One of the girls I coached last fall invited me to one of her school volleyball games.
Today was that day.
I felt a little nervous as we drove because the event was being held at
*dun dun dun*
my old middle school...
I don't know if anyone else feels the same, but I
hated
middle school.
On a scale from 1 to 10, I would rate
College:
10
Elementary School:
9
High School:
5
Middle School:
-3
Hatred does not fully describe
the feelings I had
toward all the
anxiety,
humiliation,
and
total confidence annihilation
that period of my life held for me.
Well,
I was going
back.
My husband pulled into the parking lot
and I found myself
a little too excited to enter my
When we walked in, nothing jarred my memory
...
they had, after all, redesigned half of the school.
But as we walked down the hallway,
toward the gym,
it seemed to me that
page after page of my "book of life"
was being flipped backward until I found myself
...
back in middle school.
The lockers had changed,
carpet adorned the floor in place of the ugly hard tile,
but the walls...
those dreaded walls,
were still standing, white and bleak as ever.
We walked into the gym.
The floor was even the same.
They had added some things here and there,
but the smell - THE SMELL
was still there,
that same oddly sweet and subtle scent still lingered.
And here's the shocker:
No shiver ran up and down my spine.
No gag reflex engaged.
No eye rolling.
No sneer of the face.
Instead:
A flicker of a memory entered my mind of the
first time I went into that gym
and breathed in that smell.
I had GOOD feelings.
I can't quite put
my finger on where those good
memories were coming from,
but they were definitely good,
not bad.
Perhaps I was remembering the excitement I felt
the first week
at being in middle school,
before
the guillotine came down.
I enjoyed the volleyball games
(remember? the game? the reason we came?)
They won all 5 games!
Woot!
But I was eager to get out and look around that school.
I didn't have the nerve to go into the bathrooms,
but I looked into some of the classrooms.
I found
my old science rooms from
6th grade and 7th grade,
my old locker areas
from 6th and 8th grade,
the drinking fountain
I struggled at to gag down my enormous migraine pills,
my social studies class room
from 6th grade
(which still had the same desks and chairs, by the way).
I have never had an experience like that.
Good or bad, I wanted more memories.
I stomped around that school like
I still went there,
my husband trailing
quietly and timidly
behind me
(I think he was a little afraid we'd get caught without a hall-pass)
;0)
We headed back to the remodeled part.
The stairs were gone!
More memories of a big fat jerk bully
lunging down the now non-existent stairwell and crowd surfing
(p.s. no one KNEW he was planning on doing this,
and when I say "crowd surfing",
I really mean,
"people collapsing beneath his unexpected body landing on them")
(p.s. no one KNEW he was planning on doing this,
and when I say "crowd surfing",
I really mean,
"people collapsing beneath his unexpected body landing on them")
flashed before me.
Half my classrooms were gone.
I wandered the new hallways,
still searching,
remembering
what used to be,
hoping
to find a remnant of
anything
from my time in that big beautiful remodel.
My desire was not fulfilled, but
a flood of memories
blinded me,
literally
blinded my visual senses.
My old band room.
The tiny basement
where we had
art and shop class.
art and shop class.
Upstairs
was my old 7th grade math room.
I was even excited to see, in my mind's eye, my old Spanish room
and I heartily disliked Spanish.
I even saw the faces
of some of the school students,
random as best as I can determine.
We left the building
and I saw the place
where my mother
picked me up so many times.
As we drove home,
we saw an
amazingly brilliant sunset,
the kind that
turns your skin and the air around you orange.
How many times have I driven
away
from that school
dreading
the homework I knew I couldn't finish in time,
the test I knew I would fail the next day,
the three month project I knew was due after the weekend and I hadn't even started it yet.
How many times have I driven
passed
that school
thinking
"Jail! I hope they knock it down!"
or
thinking evil thoughts of that building,
no person in particular,
just the bricks themselves
for existing.
Now I've gone back in and wished for more.
Are my memories of hatred false?
I doubt it,
I left that school
hating it,
only remembering the bad experiences,
which were many.
Today I was given a
small gift:
some good memories
in that retched place,
that was not so retched as I thought.
Now it's half gone,
and as odd as I feel,
I miss that part that's been rebuilt,
and am grateful for the remaining part to remind me of the "good smells."
