Cafeteria Crisis

It was high school and I was the new kid.

I wasn’t just any new kid. I was the Catholic school kid who went from a school of less than 200 kids from ages 3 to 14 to the halls of teen angst shared with at least 2,500. At least I got to go to Warped Tour and smell grass before I got wrapped up into that but man, I was a young freshman! Practically everyone had been going to school together, grew up together, all knew each other for years. I never seen so many different people in my life. Don’t get me wrong, this school was chalk full of white people. You can imagine how small my world was. I was suddenly walking amongst the bored, expressive, depressive teens doing whatever forever because there was never a whole lot going on that I would some day identify with for the rest of my life.

But I didn’t know any of that when I walked through those doors. I can still remember how scared and excited I was. I probably walked in bright-eyed with RBF. I was really quiet. I cut off all my hair right before school started in spite of an ex-boyfriend. I can’t imagine what my sense of style was beyond emulating the boys I wanted to be in the 90s. I was coming out of a Hot Gothic phased into a post-scene girl with hair clips and faux pearls just trying to figure out how I wanted to be. I never thought of myself as weird but maybe I was.

Everyday I sat at a lunch table alone eating a lunch my mom packed for me. I didn’t understand what it meant to be loved in such a way but to this day peanut butter and jellies do not taste the same. I never really talked to anyone in this school. Some people were nice to me in class and I really do remember some of the first conversations I had with my classmates because you never know how much of an impact you can make on a kid like that. Me! The social, extroverted, camera-ready butterfly I am today was a measly cocoon back then! People would come up to my table and I would get way too excited, perk up a bit, eyes lit and ready to open up to the first person who showed up and you know what they said when they opened their mouth?

“Can I take this chair?”

Coooooooool. Cool, cool. Cool. Yeah, not my chair. Go for it. It was so embarrassing! But one day this magical little angel starting appearing at my table. She was always dressed in black, notebook in hand, ready to talk to anybody. I hate to say much about it, but she wasn’t exactly a popular kid. I was basically Lindsey Weir back then and even though I was equally weird doing the same exact shit that she was, I was hesitant to be her friend. I think they made fun of her for liking anime. I didn’t know what anime was back then but in my high school head I thought it was some super weird shit so I didn’t address it. We talked a bit at lunch but without much in common, we floated apart. I ended up in the hallway with the sexually ambiguous drug experimenters and she owned our table with a bunch of anime-loving beauties.

I’m happy things worked out for both of us in the ways that it did. I definitely began growing into myself quickly when I met people who were of a similar taste or curiosity for life. I had really good times back then even though at the time it was hard to see it. Even in those moments you feel the most humiliated, try to remember it will become a great story someday. Let your nerves become impulses that thrust you into new situations. And for the love of all Gods, be friends with the person who is willing to sit with you at lunch. Especially when no one else is beside you. Those people are the ones that make this world better and you are going to miss out on the greatest friendships of your life if you ignore them for something going on outside.

Just enjoy the ride. You'll find your tide eventually, lil fishie.