Back to School

I found myself today in the kind of place I haven't been to in years. And the littlest things took me back just like THAT.

These lockers were the first time machine. I thought of a hallway back in grade school, where I first discovered how nice it was to stay after classes and just talk to friends. And then my Hollywood-obsessed self thought of Angela, Jordan and Brian in the hallway. Le sigh.

And then I had to pee. And then I peed while reading stuff like this. Which made me laugh real hard. Because it was so...high school.

And then I wound up in Math class. Math! Class! The scariest place in the universe. I saw the formula for percent, base, and rate and almost puked. And then I saw these chairs and I remembered one that got vandalized within an inch of its life.

And then we went to my Happy Place. Where I remember going nuts about Laura Ingalls Wilder and Nancy Drew. And something about the Dewey Decimal System.

And throughout the day we were surrounded by kids like these. Smiling laughing singing running reciting. And I realized the...fleeting but potent beauty of youth. Full of promise and hope and all the corny things that we say and think we don't mean but we do. And I felt its energy like a slap in the face. And I felt the weight of being older--not in a "Crap, I'm getting wrinkly and rickety" way but a "Crap, we wrinkly and rickety people are responsible for these kids' futures and I don't think I'm built for it" way.

And I realized (yet again) that I can't work for an NGO or foundation because flagpole ceremony pa lang lumuluha na ako. And I can't work with kids because even if they think I'm one of them and they like me my cuss word combos come out at the funkiest times. (Who am I kidding? They come out anytime.)

And when I looked down I realized that all of us were wearing blue shoes, young shoes, and I thought, "Maybe this kind of job is what keeps us young and wearing blue shoes, young shoes."

I thank heaven for my blue shoes, my young shoes.

Sometimes I think they're the only shoes I really feel like I'm me in.