American High School

There is a girl from Denmark called Cornelia, and she is lovely. Cornelia has blue eyes and strawberry hair. She came to the USA last year as an exchange student. Backstage, before a theatre performance, Cornelia told me all the things most exciting and surprising about America: hot Cheetos! She shined at the mention of dating and boisterous, bubbly teenagers. Prom and milkshakes and varsity jackets; football and parties and pancakes; big tests and big mouths and big dreams. In fact, she has a whole YouTube video on her exchange student experience - you can watch it here.

I've been thinking a lot about the stereotypical high school experience, media portrayals of the same, and how they compare to my own. There are glaring stadium lights, paper airplanes. I picture Sam and Patrick and Charlie having a late-night meal at Kings, and Lady Bird, emotional, in a Sacramento car. Cassette tapes. There are Heathers (the movie) and Heather (Conan Gray). Boxed wine, cheap beer. It's all very white and very light and very young.

Perhaps it's the home I grew up in; my parents don't really go out or have people over. My best friend Lily's house was a complete culture shock, the first time around - neighbors and yard concerts and edamame on platters and people, people, people. Perhaps it's a facet of the quietness that doesn't really belong to me. Or, the art school freshman year. The months of teacher strikes and cookies in the cold. Donald Trump. The mental illnesses. The racial awakening. The pandemic. 

Whatever the reason(s), I've never been to a high school dance. Apparently, there's grinding. I've never been to a high school party. I have been to two Homecoming games, and I didn't bring a sweater, and I was freezing. There were gaps in the bleachers. Lots of balding dads. All the elementary school time spent pounding peer pressure and say no to drugs into my head has been completely useless. I've never seen anyone use their locker. Weekends are strangers, homework is omniscient, and I talk to maybe one person every other day. Over a screen, naturally. The closest I've gotten to the classic Americana hot-summer-night-with-friends was the dry June between eighth grade and ninth. I was with people I don't talk to anymore. We looked at stars from trampolines, and played hide-and-seek in the dark. There were pine needles. There were shoes over telephone wires.

I hate school, but please, let me be clear: I'm grateful for what I have. I'm so privileged to have the opportunity, and the resources, and the people behind me to get a good education. I think that consciousness can coexist with complete boredom, apathy, and exhaustion. Every time I sit down to work on AP Bio, I think about how unimportant it all is. There are bodies in the streets. Drug wars. Violence. Cousins in prisons. Every (sporadic and infrequent) time I sit down to study for the SAT or ACT, I think about how corrupt the education system is. Particularly College Board. In quiet classrooms with number two pencils and stop watches, I think not of (A) or (B), bubble in completely or your answer will not be counted, but of the advantage I have because I'm addicted to books. I think of the anarchy sticker on my old history teacher's laptop.

What has been accurate for me? The bathrooms. High school bathrooms are icky and smell like strawberry vapes. We make them that way. Speaking of bathrooms, period solidarity. Also, gendered bathrooms, which I frankly don't understand. They do, indeed, sell milk cartons at the lunch counter. White boys play Devil's Advocate and quote Ben Shapiro, which is deeply depressing. Fire drills happen in the snow. The admin has more school spirit than the general student body; there are cameras and metal detectors; teachers stuff cotton in their ears as people use slurs in hallways. A lot of it is also just mundane. Nothing noteworthy. Nothing new. Just another flight of stairs, now; just another day marked by bells and green ink.

I'm not disappointed, per say. Movie-and-book-and-magazine high school has always seemed a fantastic fever-dream, re-imagined by nostalgic forty-year-olds. I am also not overjoyed with my time. What I am is confused.

Because I hate school - this, we've established. But I don't like being away. But I complain endlessly about APUSH notes. But I know my days left with the people I've known since toddler-dom are numbered. But I am so, so tired. But everyone is so alive. But there is idealism mixed in there somewhere, floating among the strawberry vapor.

But I'll miss it. It sucks, and it hurts, but I can say with complete conviction that I will miss it when it's gone. 

I'm sorry Cornelia didn't get a prom. When this is all over, I promise I'll go for her. For the capitalistic, American-istic, Dreamer-istic movie of it all.

Photo by kevin laminto on Unsplash