"You Rock! Have a great summer!"
"You are so fun to be around!"
"I'm so glad I got to know you!"
These are quotes in my yearbook from my junior year of high school. Why my junior year, you ask? Well, I'll tell you.
When I was a sophomore, I was the only kid whose mom forgot to order a yearbook. Didn't even know until the last day of school. Went to pick up my yearbook and was told nobody paid for one. So, I wandered around the school halls empty handed, watching everyone else excitedly sharing sonnets and penning poetry in each other's end-of-year keepsakes.
Eventually, my drama teacher, Andra Thorne, noticed my lack of participation. I explained the mishap to her. She pulled a couple pieces of copy paper from the printer and stapled them together. On the front she wrote, "Nick Siler's Cool Yearbook :-)" It was a wonderful act of sentiment. But a bit too late in the game. Yearbook signing was pretty much over by that point. Still, I'm grateful to her. It was much easier feeding those few blank pages down the paper shredder than it was fitting an entire glossy yearbook.*
My senior year was a different story. Everything during my senior year felt the need to be momentous. A farewell "it's been nice knowing you" passage just wouldn't suffice. It wouldn't accurately fulfill how wonderful my year with these people had been. And, I am a slave to accuracy. So, rather than showing up with a pen and winging it the morning of...I spent HOURS typing and addressing individual letters to each person.
I was still finishing the letters the morning of the last day of school. And, it took me longer than expected (slave to accuracy). So, I didn't end up making it to school until 11:00 o'clock. On the last day of school students vacate the premises as soon as possible. The halls are mostly desolate by 11:00. By the time I arrived to deliver my letters, most of the recipients were already gone. My summer vacation kicked off by looking up addresses in the phone book and mailing out the unclaimed letters.
"Hey Nick! Math was the greatest! Have a great summer! I'll see you around!" (thanks, Natalie McGuire)
This is what normal people write in yearbooks. Me--the enigma that I am--I type full page, single-spaced, self-addressed letters. Aye, yai, yai (shakes head at himself). What a rare character I am.
Needless to say, my senior yearbook ended up rather barren as well.
So, that's what I have. My 11th Grade "So Glad You Were in My Seminary Class!" Yearbook (thanks, Anna Packer). Which is fine with me. It's the best of both worlds anyway. I have all my year-older and year-younger favorites together. Plus (if I'm being completely honest), I don't really care. I don't look to the books for guidance now, nor have they shaped me into the person I've become. So, I think I'd be just fine without them.
It's interesting, isn't it, how epochal things can seem at the time? Sometimes, in retrospect, your biggest moments become your biggest questions: why did I spend so much energy; why did I care so much? Time is the undefeated distancing champion. And, with distance, comes perspective. And, with perspective, comes greater knowledge.
Perhaps recognizing this IS the
culmination of my high school education…
Maybe high school was all just a set up for me to look back one day and
realize sometimes things that seem like a really big deal…in reality…are
not. Perhaps it wasn’t about fractions
and decent comma placement. Maybe those
180 days a year (yes, I even went to school on make-up snow days) were all
leading up to this one, all-important life-lesson that I had to Dumbledore on
my own! Perhaps this essay is my final
paper, my thesis, my final exam, and today…I passed! July 10th, 2014—I, Nicholas Siler,
have finally graduated high school!
IT'S WATER!! Did you hear me, Annie Sullivan? It has a name! And, it's name is WATER.
Wouldn't you know it? I finally graduated high school and there still isn't anyone around to sign my yearbook. Some things never change ;-)
Epilogue
3 things that struck me going back through the yearbook
1. How many names I don't even recognize.
2. How many people thought we were going to stay in touch.
3. How many girls left me their phone number. (yeehaw)
Also, Jocelyn Stayner Gibbons (BYU grad and mother of 3), who graduated in the top 5% of our class, left me with this legacy I now pass on to you.
"PEOPLE HAVE THE RIGHT TO WALK AROUND BUTT NAKED"
Words to live by, Jocelyn. Words to live by.
*This was a joke. I didn't really shred my yearbook, homemade or otherwise.
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