The Watcher

Cinder block walls feel like home, where we learn our capability to withstand adult decisions. The off white paint covered with beautiful student murals represents much more than dreams and talents. We spend as much time in school, if not more, as our parents do at work. Still, winding up back at my high school as an administrative assistant, the same place I’d been tossed in the trash bin ten years prior as a freshman, somehow made me feel more like garbage at twenty something than it did at fourteen. I still remembered how things worked in high school, and many of the same rules applied, the expectation to do your work and be on time. Only this period of my life I was working with the other side as one of the adults. I hadn’t grown much since high school and frankly I still looked like a kid myself. Somehow, the duty of questioning the tardiness and decision making processes of young people was now my job.

My first day in my new job, after getting the spiel from my supervisor during the policy and expectation orientation, I searched through my new desk. The huge brown clunk of wood and metal was new to me and old to the previous assistant recently tossed out like sour meat to make room in the cold drafty office for much fresher cheaper meat. The job paid very little in comparison to some of the occupational achievements of my peers and former classmates, so I took every opportunity to take advantage of available office supplies. Sneaking highlighters, file folders, and envelopes into my deliberately large and inexpensive bag to take home had become a perk of the job. In truth, the twenty thousand a year salary I’d gained was more than enough to cover all of my expenses. The money was great considering the rate other part time jobs paid and a huge step above the amount I made at the grease ridden restaurant I’d been working for two months prior. Twenty thousand was fine for me, while my parents considered the work along with the amount of money another case of an unimpressive job title for the exceptional daughter they’d planned to raise.

I got into my own routine as the the school year progressed. I collected and handed out passes, and even managed gracefully scolding children towering above me, in both height and inexperience. The kids at least respected me to my face, and I became well versed in enjoying the many off days that came along with school vacations. Tuesday morning, after the end of a three day weekend, I found myself once again in the supply closet, simultaneously organizing and hoping to find something for myself; multitasking, exactly as I’d boasted on my resume and in my interview. While going through a worn out bankers box I discovered outdated mail along with notices for students either lucky enough to have graduated or otherwise forced to transfer. In the midst of all the paperwork I found a small black notebook. It was old and obviously belonged to one of the students at some point before becoming lost or confiscated entirely by a teacher insulted by the lack of focus and attention to their efforts.

I felt I’d invaded the kid’s privacy by opening it, at the same time I was an adult now so doing so was part of the job. The first page was a drawing of a woman’s face, more distinct than any of my drawings collecting dust in my parent’s basement. The next few were definitions and important things to consider regarding economic changes and investments; notes from the Econ class the school offered advanced students prior to the recent reallocation of funding. I had no idea who the kid was, I didn’t recognize the name from any of the sign in sheets or class rosters, and I was still impressed. I found myself wishing I’d cared this much about finances at that age, then I maybe I wouldn’t be back in high school.

I kept it. Meaning I stole it in terms of school policy and office management. Eventually I started to bring it to work with me everyday. Making use of the remaining pages, I wrote down my own notes of things I needed to remember. With each school day I learned more about the job and the kids coming in and out of the office, impatiently awaiting the fulfillment of their sentences and hoping to leave high school behind without ever having to look back. I saved all of the writing in the notebook from the previous student, it’s once bright black color slowly fading. The idea of throwing it all away felt wrong.

I was the kid who waited my entire life to grow up. Spending most of my time admiring the adults sitting across from us. Constantly telling us what to do, having grown up conversations, and going places created especially for those of a certain age. I saw the end of adolescence and finally going into world making my own money and my own decisions as real freedom. Before I knew it, within the span of what now feels like a few short years, I gradually transformed from an admirer to an outsider. Now, I admire the process of growing up for a change. Even with all of my desire to grow up I’m still in high school with kids staring at me. I catch them sometimes, completely envious.