DREAM IT BE IT

Last night was a milestone in my family. Brittney was the first high school graduate. The first in many to come. I have 15 nieces and nephews, just think of all the functions I will have to attend in the future; kindergarten, junior high, high school, and college graduations not to mention all the weddings. Wow! I sat in the Tacoma Dome last night observing the pomp and circumstance of the ceremony. I couldn’t help but digress back to twenty years ago almost to the day it was my graduation from the ,same high school. I had a difficult time in school. It didn’t help that my boyfriend was abusive towards me, I had braces on my teeth, you know the old banded kind and no self esteem. I almost didn’t graduate from school because I was failing senior history. I managed to squick by with a D-. I flashed back to my last day of high school. My stoner boyfriend and I were fighting all day because I wanted to break up for the 100th time. He wouldn’t let me–I was his and only his. I went to clean out my locker but it had already been cleaned out by the stoner boyfriend. All my belongings were all over the floor and trailing down the senior corridor. I remember scampering around on my knees with tears streaming down my check and trying to claim what was mine including all the torn pages of my year book. I ended up tossing it into the circular file. This was just a typical day of high school for me.

Oh God, if I could only go back and change the course of my life. My first mistake was choosing the stoner over the jock. I remember my first day of high school I had to make a choice– they both had asked me to the dance after the football game. I choose the stoner because I wanted to experience the wilder side of life. I didn’t know that I would be abused, used, and completely lose my self esteem. I didn’t know that I would end up doing his home work for three years while my grades suffered.

I sat there in the dome with the rest of my family and watched Miss Britt, who was so full of excitement, she was about ready to close this chapter of her life and begin a new chapter. She graduated with honors and now has aspirations of becoming a special education teacher. She is thrilled about leaving home and going away to college in the fall. Note to self: please stop crying.