3.24.2001

Memories 101:

When I was a freshman in highschool, I had a subscription to Sassy magazine (Hey, they now do Jane, which is the coolest chick magazine, and I have a subscription to it, also). In the magazine each month was a short essay called "It Happened To Me" in which readers would relate some small snippet of their life. Anyone could send in an essay, and I loved reading them. I looked forward to it each month.

Now also, while I was a freshman in highschool, I was in an honors english class. I rarely attended that class, or any other, being a somewhat less than role model student, I spent most of my days hanging out with friends and wandering around town, only to rush back to the buses as they left at the end of the day. That's right, I took the bus to school, left campus, and came back to ride home. It was brilliant of me.

My english teacher always managed to spot me. I would feel bad, as obviously she knew that I had been on campus, but not in her class.

So anyway ... towards the end of the year I actually started going to my classes (after a lot of crying, 2 attempts from the dean at suspending me, and being grounded for life). I loved writing, even then, and had written a small piece about the car accident I was in at 8, and how it had affected my life. I wanted to send it to Sassy. I wanted someone knowledgable to edit it for me, so I gave it to my english teacher. I didn't save a copy, I gave her the only one. I didn't want my parents to read it, so having only one copy felt safe to me.

My teacher took it, said she would look at it for me ... and asked if I had an extra copy, since you should never give anyone your only copy of something. I assured her that 'yes, of course, do I look stupid -- yes, definitely, I have another copy'.

She never gave it back. I asked, she always said she was working on it. But she never gave it back.

I don't know why I didn't make a copy of it. I don't know why I swore up and down to her that I had one. And I wonder, just now, if maybe she threw it away without a second glance, or maybe she just lost it in that stash of never ending homework that English teachers are apt to have lying around. I don't know.

I still have a lot of my old writing. The one thing I don't have (besides the massive amount of poems and songs my dad deleted from his hard drive) is that story.

And I have to wonder if it was any good. I was only 14, of course. And I've written other pieces on that time in my life ... but none ever measure up to how I felt about that one, the one I never got back from a teacher that probably thought I was some loser of a kid, since I never went to class.

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