High School Graduation Part 1

"We can just keep doing this all day until we get it right. You won't get to see any of your family today, we can just sit here and practice graduation until tonight." Thanks Principal...that's exactly what I want to do.

I'm getting a little sick of the girl I'm supposed to walk next to. We've never met, but we are getting along well enough. For graduation I guess the whole school has decided to drop the "don't talk to us and we won't talk to you" hispanic rule. I've seen this girl around, but last week she wouldn't have given me the time of day. I laugh at how stupid we have all been acting the past 4 years.

We are so near the end we aren't even paying attention. I realize this might be the very last time that I have to worry about being last anymore. I vow right there that I'll marry someone with a last name in the beginning half of the alphabet (I kept that vow too, totally by accident.)

At the point of Graduation I've pretty much gotten to the point where I hate everyone. I'm an angry teen, I just can't wait to leave this all behind. I wouldn't be going through the ceremony if they weren't making me. I don't want to see any of these people again; I can't wait to move on.

I glance over and see a group of guys that instantly proves me wrong.

Roy was my prom date and now friend. To this day when I look over my pictures of he and I, I crush on him all over again. He was everything a silly teenager girl would want in a guy; tall, dark, handsome, and dumb. He was a reformed bad boy in his 5th senior year. His only downfall was that in his reformedness he had "found Jesus" and couldn't really get through a whole conversation without bring up his "Lord and Savior." Needless to say, I warned him that if he said God or Jesus in my presence again I'd strangle him, but I'd like us to be friends. He took it really well. I hear he's a monk now. Despite our differences, I looked down the row at him and smiled. In another life we would have been a really good couple.

Robert and I had been friends since god knows how long. I can't even remember when he moved into town, but he and I were always doing things together. He had flaming red hair which drove my dad crazy, he hated him. I think the real reason why though, was because Robert was the Nevada equilvent of a surfer dude. His casualness my dad took for disrespect. I still have his coat and Ouija Board in my closet. Half of me expects him to come knocking on my door one day, asking for them back. My heart twists knowing that will most likely never happen.

My friend John had turned into a different person by graduation. Up until our trip to the Rodeo where he puked on my shoes after riding the Zipper, he had been one of the greatest bad boys I ever knew. I think he had gotten to heavily into drugs by the time grad rolled around, because he didn't seem to really know where he was. I wonder if they actually produced a diploma for him. My friend David was absent, having really disappeared off the face of the earth a few months before graduation. I heard later he had moved to LA to model.

Then there was Tyson. We had always hung out together, but never hung out exclusively. I never even had his phone number. But I looked over at Tyson at the graduation practice and realized that Tyson was a man now, no longer a boy. His lanky frame had filled out, and he was much calmer than I remembered him. He was the kind of kid that was always "on." He would do anything for a laugh, and never stood still. He always amused me, but I never thought of him as ever being a serious person. He always slouched, from 6th grade on, but today he was standing straight, looking straight ahead. I don't think he saw me looking at him, but it made me suddenly sad. He wasn't the joker any longer. I didn't even know who he was anymore.

And tonight we were going to graduate, and I'd never get the chance to know him.