Going back

I haven't seen my high school in four years. As I walked down the steps and into the cafeteria, my heart climbed into my throat and remained lodged there all evening.

I owe them $500 or so for tuition. They almost didn't let me graduate because of it. But there is a God, and for some reason, He cares about me, and through His grace, I graduated.

I am still embarrassed about that debt, however, and I had planned not to show up again until I had it. My plans changed with the re-introduction of a certain boy, and then the re-connection of a certain friend, who told me that she was starting a newspaper. Good-looking boys and newspapers, all in one night? I managed to bribe my brother into driving me. My brother brought his girlfriend and his best friend, and then my sister tagged along, and thus it was that the five us crammed into my brother's friend's mother's car.

All of them smoke, and during the ride home, they not only froze me to death with the windows hanging open, but they also nearly scalded my eyeballs out of my head because my sister was unable to get her cigarette ashes out the window. Today, nothing was more frightening than little bits of embers in the dark shooting towards my face. However, the screaming definitely released some tension, while simultaneously annoying everyone else, which was an added bonus.

We've always been outsiders at my high school. I was never sure why, but I do know it seems as though not much has changed. People were friendly, yes, but there was that nagging, underlying feeling that told me I didn't quite belong. I believe that's a reason why I value my family so much. No matter what happens or how they treat me, it is an undeniable fact that I belong. We're a broken, neurotic mess, but we care about each other; we'd give our lives for each other.

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All of the above was written yesterday. Today is my birthday. (Edited after some more thought.) Suffice it to say that while I view my family as a neurotic mess, myself included, I love them to death.

And about that good-looking boy that I mentioned both above and in previous posts? I saw him when I visited the high school. He spent all his time ogling and not talking, and I have several Facebook messages that include the phrase "u look good," with nothing else of substance. Dud. Good-looking, but a dud.

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I can't quite see the lesson here, in all of this. It's somewhere, but I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be learning, or what I'm supposed to be doing. I walk down the halls of my old high school, and aside from new paint and faces growing older, nothing's changed. What am I waiting for? What am I looking for? What do I want?

I haven't the slightest idea.