My High School Existence

Hello readers of mine.  How are we doing on this lovely October day?  Hope everything is going well with y'all.  It's been a long time since I last posted a blog but the thoughts are racing through my mind and it's time to unleash them onto the world.

I've been feeling reflective lately thinking about my high school existence.  I'll try to break it down year by year without making it too long.  I'll make a prologue about my last year in middle school and the epilogue of life past high school.  Here we go.

Prologue: Eighth Grade at Valley Middle School.

It finally happened after two years but I was finally an eighth grader at Valley Middle School.  From what I recall, it was probably my best year there.  It seemed as if everybody in my graduating class got along better and we were the kings and queens of the school.   I've had a set of loyal friends since seventh grade and it seemed like we were closer than ever.  We always met for lunches, talking about hanging out outside of school but since we didn't drive, it was difficult and life was great.  I always had a group of people to eat lunch with and share good times.  The people who were in this group with me were outsiders much like I was.  We were unpopular, we didn't come from financially well to do families, and we were bullied.  But that didn't matter to me.  I remember being very happy that year until shortly after the Christmas of 1990.

My paternal grandfather was diagnosed with lung cancer during the beginning of winter of 1991.  He had a persistent cough and no remedies the doctors gave him made it any better.  He had some tests done and sure enough, it was cancer.  This first round of cancer he had was an easy fix.  He had a portion of his lung removed and he was given a clean bill of health.  However, it was short lived.

It was the last day at VMS and I felt a sense of sadness.  I loved my teachers there, I was so used to the floor plan of the school that I could easily find my way around even with my eyes closed and many of my friends were in sixth and seventh grade so I would have to wait up to two years to see them again.  I was certain that life would pick up after it left off after I got in tenth grade and eleventh grade so I held on to that hope.  I told my teachers I would visit them as much as I could as well.

The summer of 1991 was a mixed bag of good events and bad events.  My sister graduated high school and since my grandpa had cancer, I was getting very close with my dad's side of the family.  I remember nothing but happy times with them but it was overshadowed when my grandpa had a relapse.  The cancer returned and it was inoperable so he had to go through chemotherapy.  During that summer, he was on a steady decline.  His hair fell out from the treatments and that robust body of his became frail and thin.  He had determination to beat it again, but this time it was a lot harder on him.

In the meantime, I talked to my friends about his declining state.  For a while, they were supportive but little by little, they would cut me off when I talked to them about him.  I think the experience depressed me and maybe they were growing tired of me talking about it all the time.  Also, I began to withdraw from people. I started to not be myself.  My sense of humor was starting to disappear, my mom and I weren't getting along at all and I just felt hopeless.

Year One: 9th Grade, Freshman Year

Ninth grade started and I faced it with optimism.  I was going to a new school, all of the people from middle school were there plus some new faces from Scott Highlands Middle School and the class of 1992. I remember walking through the halls seeing all the senior boys.  Their height  towered over us little freshmen and the girls who were graduating that year didn't look like girls anymore.  They looked like women.

The year started off pretty well, except I had really bad hay fever and it was hard to concentrate.  I suffered from ADD and my doctor was weaning me off my medication.  I didn't go to the nurse anymore to take my pill so I carried it with me.

As the year went on, my grandpa got worse.  My grandma also was a cancer survivor but she had a relapse so they were suffering from cancer together and she started to go on a slow and steady decline as well.  With their declining conditions, my friendships with people were starting to deteriorate as well.  I noticed that I was getting excluded from things like birthday parties, I was shut out of conversations, and I started to feel alienated from them so I decided to let them go.  Whenever I told them my grandparents were getting worse, they didn't care.

When I left that group of people, I tried to find other groups where I felt like I belonged but it just wasn't happening.  Even those people didn't want to hear of me talking about my grandparents. Also they tried to influence me to do things I knew weren't right.   I was criticized A LOT by people so as a result, I thought people were out to get me.  I felt like the world was against me.  I was also getting bullied again.


Finally in February of 1992 my grandpa passed away,  I told the group of friends I used to hang out with in middle school about it and they didn't give me any condolences whatsoever.  I was met with indifference and one of the guys who was in the group said "That's nice."  Nobody gave me any hugs or reassurance that I would be okay.  The same thing applied to everyone else.  The people who bullied me still treated me with disrespect even after I told them.  They were still unrelenting and cruel.  My grandfather's death was only the beginning.

Soon after my grandpa died, his wife's health started to rapidly decline.  My self-esteem was also declining and the depression I was feeling was suffocating.  I wasn't sent to a psychologist but looking back at it, I'm pretty sure I was suffering from clinical depression.  Sometimes, I thought the world would be a better place without me.  I wanted out of life and the thoughts of suicide became more frequent.  I never acted on those thoughts, but I had a razor blade in my nightstand and it was looking really good.

I hated taking the bus to school because that's where most of the bullying happened.  One person always made condescending remarks to me and he was relentless.  He kept picking on the clothes I wore, the things I said, the sound of my voice and it sucked.  Sometimes he would pinch me and one day, we were arguing.  I don't remember what the argument was about but he had chewing tobacco in his mouth.  I finally told him to shut up and he spit on my face.  The chewing tobacco ran down my cheek and it smelled awful.  The next day I told someone and she sent me right to the counselor's office.  I was very reluctant to go.  She held me by the arm and pretty much dragged me in there and she told me to tell the counselor what happened.  I told the counselor what happened.  The person who bullied me was called into her office and the bus driver was talked to and since then, he left me alone.  He stopped talking to me and he started to treat me like I didn't exist.

Another person bullied me on the bus as well.  She bullied me in forth grade, seventh grade and again in ninth grade.  She would trip me over, pull my hair, tease me and it was difficult on me.  Like with the boy, I told her repeatedly to leave me alone but that only made it worse.  This girl scared the shit out of me since forth grade and ninth grade was no better.  I kept silent about it.  Back in forth grade, I told my teacher of the things she did to me and for a while, she was sympathetic.  However it wore thin on her and she got to the point where my teacher didn't care and didn't do anything about it.  I kept silent about it in ninth grade as well.  For a couple years, she disappeared and came back in eleventh grade.  I was so frightened that she would pick on me again, but she left me alone. I was surprised that she did.  We passed each other in the halls in eleventh grade and senior year and she treated me like I didn't exist.  That also was a sigh of relief for me.

In May of 1992 my grandma passed away.  When she died, I took it really hard because I knew that everything was over.  Pretty soon, I would no longer go to their house since my dad and my uncle were already talking about selling their house and their belongings.

I informed my former friends about her passing away and I was met with more of the same.  I was met with indifference, no condolences or anything like that but this time, I wasn't so devastated.  In the four months between their deaths, I learned that the people I hung out with in middle school were no longer relevant to me.  I had another group that I ate lunch with after letting them go and they kept trying to tell me that I need to stop being so pessimistic.  They tried to raise my spirits but I was so wrapped up in self-pity that I couldn't even see they were trying to help me.  They gave me a dose of tough love which is what I needed but I didn't notice. They were a group of mostly African American people.  I wished today I could thank them for trying to help me and I wish I could thank them for putting up with me.

Ninth grade ended on a sad note but there was a ray of hope.  My dad's side of the family offered me a great support system and I became really good friends with my cousins from my Great Uncle.  I remember feeling a lot of love from them and I think that's what got me through in retrospect.

The summer after ninth grade was uneventful.  The sadness was still there and I could tell by looking at old pictures.  All the pictures that were taken of me had no smiles or anything.  I looked sullen and indifferent.  We had a trip to Washington state and I couldn't even enjoy myself.  The depression I was feeling still reared its ugly head.  The only thing that kept me going was some of my friends from Valley Middle School were coming into high school as freshmen so that made me happy because I thought I wouldn't be lonely for my sophomore year.

Year Two: 10th Grade, Sophomore Year

Tenth grade started uneventfully.  I was slowly beginning to lick my wounds from ninth grade and start the healing process.  Things were still a little depressing but I hoped my sophomore year would be an improvement and in many ways, it was.  My friends from Valley Middle School came back but they've changed.  They all went to different groups and started to hang out with different people.  One friend remained to be in my life and looking back at it, it was a toxic friendship.  If you want elaboration on it, refer to my blog titled "Losing a Friend Over Something Stupid."  If I wrote about it again, it would make this one even longer than it should be.  That one will explain everything.

I still felt like my life wasn't worth anything but a month into my sophomore year, something happened.  I was fifteen years old so that meant I was eligible for working.  My sister who was an assistant manager at a fast food restaurant said the place was understaffed.  I remember hearing her talk to my mother and she said maybe I should get a job working with her and my mother said it would be a great thing for me.  The next day, she came home with a job application for me and said, "We need people and you're going to work with us."  I was drafted!  LOL

I was scared about the possibility of working.  I was just a kid and I thought I was too young.  Plus, I would miss out on watching movies that came on the TV back when channels 9, 23, and 29 were independent networks and before Fox had football games on their channel.  The idea of being on my feet for more than three hours made my feet hurt just thinking about it but I filled out the application and I got an interview the next day.  I didn't know if I was hired because I didn't get the call, but my sister saw my name on the schedule and she came home and told me I got the job.

My first months at my job were not pleasant on me.  I still suffered from ADD so I took my medication before going to work.  I didn't need it for school anymore but somehow I still needed it for that.  I was easily distracted and I had a chip on my shoulder.  I remember the crew being sarcastic with each other and I didn't catch on to it.  They were being sarcastic with me and I can't believe how personally I took it.  I would get angry with my crew so the management put me on as a dining room attendant.  That meant I wouldn't work with the crew directly.   To make matters worse for me, my sister disclosed to my boss that I had ADD so I was almost constantly supervised.  The management would come out in the dining room to make sure I was on task.  I was but they still gave me extra attention and I didn't like it.

As the year pressed on, I got some of the friends I lost the year before back.  I think in some ways I was getting to be more pleasant to be around.  I was done grieving my grandparents and things were looking better.  The bullying subsided as well.  I was in recovery so to speak.  I had a job so that kept my mind off my problems, my tastes changed a little in the summer of that year, my mother had me see a psychologist.  It was hard for me to open up to her because I felt like there was nothing wrong with me.  I just came off a traumatic experience with ninth grade and some part of tenth grade.  In some ways I wish I opened up to her more.  I wished I told her things weren't so great with me.  I rarely hung out with anyone.  I was lucky if I went out with people my own age more than five times in a whole school year.

I spent most of my time alone though.  I didn't want to get too close to people because I've been betrayed so many times.  Also, one of my classmates said he didn't hear anything about me at all for my sophomore year and I told him I was keeping a low key.  I kept quiet and that's how I liked it.

At one point during my tenth grade year, my dad got a job offer in Wisconsin. He would be the supervisor to people at the corporate office of his job.  The job offer was tempting and it would make him more money.

Tenth grade ended on a positive note.  Things were improving at my job and the lighter side of me started to come out after being shrouded in darkness.  I was slowing beginning to get my life back together.

Year Three: 11th Grade, Junior Year

Eleventh grade started pretty well but this time, I lowered my expectations.  I stopped believing that I would be popular like I always dreamed of being;.  I figured I'd be better off being myself than trying to pretend that I'm someone who I'm not.  Self acceptance was easy to come by with me.  If people didn't like who I was, then fuck 'em.

Also another thing that lowered my expectations was the new crowd of Freshman coming in.  I was friends with some of them upon leaving middle school and like the class of 1996, I didn't expect them to acknowledge me and pick up where we left off and I expected them to move on with other friends.  When they came to Apple Valley High School, many of them changed.  They no longer acknowledged me in the halls and I in turn didn't acknowledge them.  That's how it was then.

Since I got most of my friends back before 10th grade concluded, I was happy.  I was a part of a group again and it felt great.  Sure there were problems every group faces: backstabbing, exclusion, and mutual friends disliking each other but it was okay.  This world isn't perfect and for us to expect it would be unrealistic.  But the clique started to unravel as the year progressed.  One of the people in my group got kicked out of her mother's house so she moved in with her dad and ended up pregnant shortly after moving.  I grew tired of all the backstabbing and the others dropped out so everyone I liked started leaving.

Things were great at my job.  It still gave me an opportunity to distract myself from life's woes and it gave me a chance to get out of the house.  I had no friends to hang out with so I considered working hanging out.

Still though, I felt lonely.  Since the clique I hung out with disbanded, I tried to find other people to hang out with.  I was dismissed as a wannabe so I would move on to another group but it was more of the same.  I felt alienated again but this time I didn't take it so personally.  Most of the time, I didn't eat lunch at school because nobody would join me.  Also, the people I was friends with didn't share the same lunch period as I did.  I didn't even share a class with them so the only time I would talk to them was between classes.  Five minutes isn't enough time to have an engaging conversation at all.  At this point, I wished I was a senior and I wished I was already graduated.  I got sick of the every day grind and not having anyone to hang out with.

Sure, I had friends but they all dropped out, moved or they were life long friends who attended other schools.  Getting together with them was a rare instance.  The classes I shared with former friends, I didn't sit next to them.  One of them I did sit next to but I didn't talk to her.  I tried to strike up conversations with her but she wanted no part of it.  Also, one of my other former friends was a loner much like me and I tried to reconnect with her as well, but it went nowhere.

Another thing that made me lonely was I would see all the couples in the halls and it made me sad.  I wished I had a boyfriend too and every guy I had a crush on wasn't interested in me.  They treated me like one of the guys instead of a potential girlfriend. One of them went so far to tell me he thought I was pretty when we were kids but he said I turned into an ugly girl.  Looking back at it, I had more meaningful friendships with boys instead of girls because men don't feel the need to be fake and I liked that.  Sometimes I felt like a boy was ready to ask me out but I would see them in the halls holding some other girl's hand. Or they would talk to me about a girl they had feelings for so they asked me how they should go about asking her out.

A part of me didn't trust the opposite sex.  In seventh grade, I was made the butt of a very cruel joke.  Two boys asked me out.  One of them asked me out and I said yes and a week later, he broke up with me. A week later, another boy asked me out and broke up with me a couple days later as well.  I heard that one of the boys was going to get some money if he kissed me and it didn't happen.  The other relentlessly sexually harassed me and it continued for the rest of seventh grade, eighth grade and part of ninth grade.  We made amends in ninth grade but in tenth grade, he began again telling people I gave him oral sex.  I told him it wasn't true and he knew he was lying.  Back in seventh grade, I didn't tell anyone that he was sexually harassing me.  He had his mother come to school with him for parents day in seventh grade and he introduced me to her as his girlfriend.  I told him in front of his mother that I wasn't.  In tenth grade, I told the counselor about it with one of my friends urging me to do so.  He was upset and the people he told were also called into the office and they were upset with me too.  Again, I was ostracized.

I lied about having boyfriends to ward off boys who I had no interest in.  People would ask me if I did have a boyfriend and I told them yes because I didn't want to look bad.  I didn't want people to see me as a prude.  I feel bad about lying that I had them.  I was afraid to date because of what happened in seventh grade.

A few weeks before Junior year ended, I picked up a bad habit. I started smoking.  I remember my brother telling me he was a smoker and I took his news pretty well.  I told him I couldn't believe he was but a lot of my classmates smoked, my dad smoked and other family members did so I was curious to try one.  I remember being at a barbecue with one of my friends and the group that was there tried to get me to start but at the time I wasn't interested.  Finally the night came.  My parents were out of the house for the night and my brother had his friend Dan over.  I was in my room and he knocked on the door and said "Shannon, you wanna have a smoke with us?"

"Sure," I said.

We went outside and my brother took out his pack of cigarettes.  He gave me one and he taught me how to light it.  He told me to inhale it deeply and exhale and my first cigarette got me sick.  I remembered how dizzy I was and I remember the horrible taste in my mouth.  I felt nauseous and felt like I had to throw up but I didn't.  My brother told me to drink a couple glasses of milk afterwards and I would be fine.  For my brother being two years younger than me, he was right.  The milk did help get the taste out of my mouth and it helped the nausea.  I vowed to never smoke again, but I slowly became addicted.

Junior year ended on a positive note.  I knew next year at the same time I would have already graduated and I wouldn't have to see those people again.  I saw that I had enough credits and I planned to graduate after winter trimester.  I was on the home stretch, baby!

The summer before senior year was more of the same.  It was all work, work, work.  All work and no play made Shannon a dull girl. There was something I was looking forward to: my brother would join me in high school for his Freshman year.  It had been six years since we last attended school together.  I liked seeing him around in the halls when we went to Cedar Park Elementary. High school would be more of the same.

Year Four: 12th Grade, Senior Year

At long last, senior year arrived.  In February of 1995 I would be graduated and I would never have to see the halls of the school again.  I didn't plan to go to the commencement that would happen in June.  I planned to work that night.  I planned a quiet exit.

The feel of my senior year was comparable to eighth grade.  I think most of us were happy that in a few short months, we would be graduating and starting a new chapter in our lives.  I got along pretty well with everybody and the bullying pretty much stopped.  My sense of humor was returning and it was an all around good year for me.

I took a lot of art classes that year and it made me regret that I didn't take more the years before.  My works got a lot of complements and I really liked being able to work with my hands and being able to create something.  The people in my art classes were also very friendly and it seemed like they were not judgmental of me.

In my senior year, I met a transplant from Illinois.  She was very shy and sat a lot by herself.  I knew that in my school, if you're a new student, chances are you'll go unnoticed and I felt compelled to talk to her.  I remember in my journalism class, we had to do some research in the library and I saw her sitting at a table all by herself.  She was reading a book so I took it upon myself to befriend her.  We talked and I think we hit it off pretty well.  Little did I know that I would still be talking to her this day.

I still had fear that any friend I got close with would end up leaving.  Two people, a brother and sister, just moved to Utah, and another one of my friends decided to go to the ALC.  She grew tired of the rules at AVHS and she was going to leave after the first trimester.  We hung out a few times outside of school.  She was a great friend and I wished I hung out with her more.  Also, people I talked to a lot were planning to graduate early.  At the time, I was planning to as well.

As the year progressed, my parents starting to talk about my post high school education and they knew I was planning to graduate early.  They asked me what my plans were and I told them I wanted to just work and wait a year to go to college.  I wasn't sure of what I wanted to do with myself and I wanted some time to decide but they told me I should look into going to college anyway after leaving second trimester.  I wasn't too keen on the idea of ending one school and starting another one right away like my sister did.  So I made a choice to stay on for another trimester.  I made an appointment with the guidance counselor and I asked him if it was at all possible if I could have some classes for the spring.  He said yes so he gave me a list of classes to sign up for and I did.

More of the same happened.  More of my friends dropped out so I was left alone again with the transplant from Illinois.  At that time, she found more friends to hang out so that made me happy for her.  Also, all the boys I was in love with were interested in other people so that made me a little depressed.  Winter trimester was hard on me academically.  I passed my classes but I could have done much better. I was working a lot so that yielded me very little time to do my homework.  I would use study hall to catch up on sleep, but that didn't happen.  I talked to quite a few people who were in my study hall.  A few of them were from the popular crowd and I got along with them pretty well.  They told the funniest jokes and they were really kind and sweet to me.

Going to school with my brother was great as well.  He was everything I wasn't in school.  He had a lot of friends, he was involved in sports, he went to a lot of parties, dances, games and what not, everyone liked him very much and I was happy to see that.  Some of the popular kids in my graduating class had siblings who were in my brother's class.  They found out who he was and my brother told them I was not a bad person.  They needed to give me a chance and some of them did.  One of them told him he wasn't going to hold it against him that I was his sister.  It hurt a little when my brother told me he said that but by that time, I didn't take people so personally as I did four years before.

I was able to laugh at myself when I said or did something strange.  I also learned how to give shit to people without coming off as a bitch.  Still though, I still didn't have a lot of self confidence and in some ways I still thought people were against me.  I had no intention of seeing any of my classmates after graduation.  I didn't plan to go to the commencement ceremony or the all night party.  I still wanted a quiet exit but as the third trimester began and pressed on, I changed my mind.  I was going to do both of those things.

During my last week of high school, another tragedy happened.  For a long time, my maternal grandmother suffered from Alzheimers.  While I was in high school, her mental state kept reverting back to a baby.  She passed away and while she was in the twilight of her life, I didn't tell anyone of her.  I thought they had enough of me talking about my dad's parents that I saved them from talking about my mom's mother.  The day before I graduated high school, she passed away.

The year ended with a sense of closure for me.  I went to my commencement and I felt happy that I got over my pride and fear.  The all night party was a blast and when it concluded, my mom came to pick me up.  I walked through that door the last time, I walked on the pavement that I walked on so many times and opened my mom's car door.  I closed the door and buckled my seat belt and a sense of great relief came over me.  It was bittersweet because I was grieving the loss of my grandmother and I was celebrating the end of high school. That long, arduous chapter in my life was over.

Epilogue: Post High School and Beyond

After high school ended, I attended college at the Rosemount Dakota County Technical College.  I wasn't a good student.  I didn't do my homework, I wasn't ready to go and I didn't realize how hard it would be.  The first year, my major was in computer programming and I failed that miserably.  Also, I met my husband my first year of school.  He was the first and only boyfriend I had.

The healing process began for me as well.  I was no longer bullied, I didn't have to worry about being judged anymore and I began to let go of the teen anger that I had built up all these years.  Forgiving people who wronged me slowly but surely was easy to come by and I think I finally lightened up to people.

When I met Ted, he introduced me to his friends and soon my social life went from non existent to being gone every day off from work I had.  I was exposed to a lot of different people and it was kind of a shock to me.  For a long time, it was overwhelming to me since I rarely went out before and many of my husband's friends were old enough to be my parents.  I enjoyed hanging out with them and I would see a lot of them until I got married and had my children.

In the years since leaving high school, I still shuddered at the thought of going to my high school reunion, but my sister said something to me.  She told me I should go and she said I would regret it if I didn't.  My sister wasn't the most popular but she went to hers and she had a great time.  She said the same would go for me so eight years ago when I was VERY pregnant with my daughter, I went.  I was met with smiles, some hugs and great conversations.

Also, when social media became popular, I found quite a few of my classmates on Myspace and later Facebook.  As the friend requests started to fill in my roster of friends, I have come to realize that many people I went to high school with struggled just as much or even more than I did.  Their experiences sounded a lot like my own so it was so nice to realize that I wasn't alone.  Perhaps I was too self-absorbed to notice.  Every Wednesday before Thanksgiving, there were mini-reunions at Rascal's.  Though I have only attended the last two, I felt like I was welcome and I didn't feel like I was judged.  As with the reunion, I was met with smiles, waves and hugs.  People weren't against me after all.  It was all in my mind.

Even as adults, we have the same struggles that give us a common ground whether it comes to raising children, jobs, foreclosures, job loss, health crises, divorce, etc.

I wish I could have gone back in time and looked at my life with a more positive attitude but I feel like I'm making up for it now, and that's all that counts. Even after almost nineteen years of graduating high school, I'm still very much a loner.  I keep searching for people to talk with and make me feel like I belong and it still hasn't really happened.  I'm hopeful though and I don't take it so personally.

So there you have it.  I hope I ended this blog on an uplifting note.  Thank you.