Ditching School
I wasn’t actually breaking any rules by leaving campus early. I had a free period and an off campus pass. We were taking our finals and the schedule made it so I could leave school two hours early.
Despite the total legitimacy of my ditching I still left through the arts area, which had less security what with visiting all the former students who visit that area.
Once I was actually off campus I felt fairly safe but I still couldn’t help but suspect that every person in every passing car would see me and think “What a bad student. Skipping school like that.” It was then that I remembered how much I look like a college student. Most people think I’m at least a junior (I’m a sophomore and my teachers assume I’m a junior) and the usually assume I’m a freshman (or older) in college.
So, as I put my hair up in a manner that made me look more like college student then a scruffy high school-er, I began creating a plan for if the police stopped me and asked me about my age:
POLICE: Miss, aren’t supposed to be in class?
ME: umm… No. My classes are over for today.
POLICE: As I understand it, school is still in session.
ME: Wait a sec… You think I’m high school, don’t you? Jesus Christ, this always happens. I’m at the JC, ‘kay? I graduated high school LAST year. Class of 2010.
In my mind I was an art student trying to get her general ed out of the way before going to an arts college. I’d just finished my figure drawing final, which was a class I was taking to bolster my portfolio.
No one actually asked me about my age, but I was still well prepared.
I got to the costume store, where I was planning to pick up so stripped stockings for a cosplay outfit. The woman in the store directed my to the socks/stocking corner where I quickly found what I needed and bought it at the register and got out of there. My heart was still elevated but it was lowering now that I was far from the school.
My feet hurt and I was thirsty and hungry so I walked to the little private coffee house about a half-block down from the costume store. I ordered my mocha (“What can I get you?” “Mocha with whip.” “For her or to go?” “For here.” “Anything to eat?” “No.” “You’ll be sitting inside?” “Yep.”) and sat down at one of the small two person tables. To my right there was a woman with a sleeping baby and ahead of me was a man with sunglasses drinking a cappuccino and typing on his lap top and in the corner was an actual college girl who looked like she was cramming for some sort of math final. You could hear the people ordering as the coffee grinders whined and Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours” played over the stereo.
I pulled out All Things Bright And Beautiful by James Herriot and read about he and his future wife’s first kiss and about how he treated the dog belonging to a family of 14 while quietly sipping my pipping hot mocha and wiping whipped cream off my nose. When I finished my mocha I closed my book and put my dirty glass on the counter that said “dirty dishes”.
I listened to music as I walked passed the “Toad in the Hole” pub, under the overpass, and around the mall (I didn’t go through because I heard that they lick you out if your a student and it’s school hours) and to the downtown bus terminal so I could catch the #1 bus home. And as Gregory and the Hawk’s “Hard To Define” streamed out of my ear buds I thought about how it felt to just walk. To have no places I had to be. No homework to do. No adults I had commitments to. To have the freedom to go to a coffee shop and read for an hour with no disturbances and then be able to walk, free of burden, to the bus where it wouldn’t matter if I missed my stop.
I like it, on some level. I think that was the adult in me. The part that like independence and freedom. The part that wanted the responsibility for myself.
However, another part of me was scared. It wanted the structure and companionship of school. That part of me was scared of the same responsibility the other part desired.
And it was this conflict of feelings, this difference of opinions, that told what being a teen is: wanting the freedom of being the only one with control over your life, but not having any responsibilities that come with that.
It reminded me that no matter how much I can think and act like an adult, I’m still a kid. And I will be for a lot longer.