Dear High School, I think I have the most to write about with you. You are not one place; you are four years that I’ve experienced in two places. My first year with you was at Gateway. Out of my four years, that is the one I’ll always remember. It was my first year out of middle school and the way people talked about it made it seem as if you were the big, scary, bully who was coming after me. However, when I finally got there, it seemed the opposite. You weren’t scary, mean, or anything else.
I had gone over my plan over and over, “Get off the bus, then go straight to homeroom, no socialization. ” So when I finally got my feet off of the bus and onto the cement, I made my way for my homeroom. I walked fast and focused, no one was going to make me miss homeroom. I arrived at the classroom and no one was there, I faced a dilemma, “Go in an hour early, or stand here in silence. ” I chose the latter. I kept my eyes on my feet, letting my music flow into my ears as I kicked around little rocks on the pavement. I continued to stand there until the teacher opened his door around 7:00.
Being the first one there didn’t surprise me, I always liked being early, the part that surprised me was that homeroom wasn’t grade specific, which scared me because I didn’t want to embarrass myself in front of the seniors in the room. I was so shy in freshman year, so it was no surprise to me that I made no friends. Until about a month in. However, it didn’t stay that way very long. After about one week, I grew a routine. Every morning: get off my bus, find my friend Katie from middle school, and walk around with her, her brother, and our other friend. We usually had this one spot where we would meet-up, in the freshmen center.
The freshmen center was originally designed to be all freshmen classes, but they later changed that, however, the name stuck. One day, my bus was late, so when I arrived at our regular table, I came to the sad realization, they were gone. They had left me. I felt alone as if I had never made any friends. I looked over to the table, there were only two people there, Francisco and Yessenia. I had met both of them previously via Katie, but I wasn’t close with them. So, being the confused, tired, and scared Freshman I was, I just sat down with them, after staring at them for a moment.
I’ve always called myself an open book, however, I felt more open and willing to talk to both of them than I had ever been. It was strange at first because I had talked more than I had in a long time. Back in middle school, I was an annoying little bug you couldn’t get rid of, so I didn’t talk very much. I was actually social and it made me realize I loved talking and telling stories. After my morning with them, they became my routine. I spent my time with people who really enjoyed my company, whereas before I was the third person on a sidewalk meant for two.
Soon after, it was easy to predict what happened next, the group of three kids turned into twenty-two. I had met these amazing people who enjoyed my company as much as I enjoyed theirs. I met them through many outlets, mutual friends, classes, clubs, etc. And to be honest, I was the happiest I had been in a long time. I had friends, which is something I never really experienced in middle school. That last one was tough. When I was in middle school, if you did one thing that no one else did, you were weird, and the weird ones got bullied. From me trying so desperately to fit in, I got bullied, to begin with.
I didn’t need any more. So, I was silent and never spoke a word, never raised my hand, and never really had fun. There were two people in particular who really got me to that point. The first person who changed me, Jennifer. When you stand next to someone for a whole year, you tend to interact. Considering we were both Altos, we interacted quite a bit. For the most part, we had fun and casual conversation. Other times we had very serious conversations, things like writing, love, friends, and college were all things that were brought up in our serious conversations.
When we would have these conversations, I felt honored, special, and mature. It was as if an elder was passing on their words of wisdom, to me. She was my mentor. She started guiding me and she did a wonderful job at it too. She motivated me to write again. After my rejection from Osceola County School for the Arts (OCSA), I was devastated, but somehow, she was able to teach me to not give up on my dream. She always commented that when I mentioned writing, I sounded passionate and my face would glow like the early morning sun. So when I was thinking about auditioning, for OCSA, she was the one who got me to do it.
I was terrified of getting rejection again. I knew if I got rejection again, I wouldn’t have wanted to pick up a pen and write ever again. When I would put myself down or when I would say my writing’s not that good, she would get very angry with me. She would say, “if you didn’t think your writing is good enough, fix it. ” So I would. I would edit, bring her a copy, she would read it and critique it. She got me back to enjoying writing. The second one, Samantha. When my table of friends was growing, my friends had a tendency to being their other friends.
Well, Francisco made it a priority to introduce her to my group of friends. So it was destined. I began to realize that the more and more I hung out with her, the more carefree I became. At the beginning of the year, I would sit legs together and hands folded on the table as if I was at a desk. Closer to the end, I wasn’t scared to scream to the Freshmen center or run around, I was fearless. The reason this happened was because, that’s who she was, she was fearless and confident. She was the kind of person who seemed to have a magnet planted within them because you always seem to want to know them more.
You can’t seem to go away from them. They changed my life and I will forever be grateful. I wouldn’t have met them if it wasn’t for you. You gave me the chance to meet these amazing people. That gave me a happiness I hadn’t felt in years. Then, I had to leave. I wanted to better my future and have a higher chance of going places in life. I got my acceptance letter to go to OCSA. The day I told everyone that I was leaving and going there, mostly everyone was happy for me because they knew how much I wanted to go. Everyone was happy except my at the time best friend, Chelsea.
I would walk into class and she would not look in my general direction, to her I was a traitor who was being charged with treason. She wanted nothing to do with me. When she did talk to me, it was her telling me how angry she was with me. That lasted until the last day when we took our group photo. Now, I was never one to cry, but I cried on that day. These people had become a second family to me, they were the closest thing I had to friends. All of them had gathered in the Freshman Center near our regular table. When I got there around 6:30, they were all there, waiting for me.
They had told me they wanted to take a photo so I will always remember them. I thought the photo was extreme considering I was just changing schools, not moving to a new state, but I still did it, and I was so glad I did. We huddled around the table, with me in the center and we all one large group photo. Everyone had their arms wrapped each other with large happy smiles on their faces. It physically hurt to leave, partially since my friends kept shaking and punching me. Sadly, I had to leave. I left to go to OCSA, and of course, you came with me.
