Seniors Are Bitches

It was a Senior privilege to run in screaming during rallies. It was also a Senior privilege to wear college sweatshirts over your uniform polo, eat lunch in the quad with the school bus yellow tables and, overall, to be a profound bitch. But at the present my classmates were shrieking and waving pink and blue pom-poms and straining against the side door of the gym, so I suppose it’s safe to say that only that first privilege was relevant.

Some song was blaring from the loudspeakers as we—or rather, they—ran in. I didn't know it, but they all seemed to, screaming lyrics and throwing their pom-poms and twirling their lanyards like lassos. It was a sight.

The rally passed in a similar manner. Fall sports teams went up and elicited cheers from everyone, including the lowerclassmen in the bleachers above who stomped so hard the foundation I leaned against rattled the base of my skull. The other, more important part of the rally was the competition for most spirit, which really meant screaming loudest and being most obnoxious. Whichever class won would receive the spirit stick, which was at its core a glittery pole. So, in between team presentations, random extroverts of the Senior class would stand up and lead us in cheers, meaning we were supposed to get up off the floor and scream and jump around and sit back down and do it all over again.

The first time, Lana turned back to look down at me sitting. I couldn’t hear, but it looked like she sighed. “I’m not getting up,” I said, and she looked past me at the sophomores screaming in the bleachers.

“Well, ASB. I have to,” she replied before turning back around, and I thought there might have been an edge to her voice. I leaned back and plugged my ears with my middle fingers, making them all sound underwater. I wondered how Leo’s day was going, and if his math teacher had yelled at him for not completing the fifth grade work she’d assigned over the summer. I hoped not.

In the end, the sophomores triumphed. They were a big class and therefore louder by default, and when they won they tumbled down the bleachers and spilled onto the “stage,” screaming and all. I guess this too was some sort of Senior privilege, because all I heard for the rest of the day were Seniors bitching about who the fuck let them run down and do the Senior thing. That and the fact that a) there were more of them and b) they had the bleachers as an advantage, since stomping on them was louder than stomping on the floor we sat on. Overall, it was deemed unfair and, well, the only thing worse than a stupid bitch is an entitled one.

I’m not really this cynical. At least, I hope not. Once upon a time, I might have enjoyed these stupid rallies. Once upon a time, I might have fought alongside my brethren for that damned spirit stick. I might have cared.

The truth was, I felt old. Sitting there with the loudspeakers blaring and the hormonal teenagers chanting, I felt ancient. I felt over it. And that was sad. It was fucking depressing. But the fact of the matter was that I wasn’t a freshman anymore. I wasn’t a sophomore, or even a junior. I was a Senior and even though it was only August, it already felt over. It was all over. Because we had college to think about. We had life. Life where your mommy didn’t fold your clothes anymore, where she didn’t hold you at night and tell you she loved you. Real life. Hard life. Fucked life.

God, I wanted a distraction. And maybe that’s what this was for everyone. Maybe jumping and screaming and losing your voice with your best friends of four years was a way to forget what lay ahead. Maybe it was a good way. Maybe I just couldn’t. Life wasn’t easy anymore. I guess it hadn’t been for a while.

Some of us were bitches. Some of us profound, entitled bitches. That’s true.

But I think it’s safe to say that we were all depressed as fuck bitches.