23/05/2002 - 8:32 p.m.

For we were young and sure to have our way (Part II)

I just was at Ren's diary, and I had to come back and write some more. I wish she were a senior too. Or maybe I wish I were a junior. There's not enough time left in two days. There's things I ought to do, ought to have done that I probably won't do.

At the end of the school year, it's always weird. It's just like any other day, except you leave with a clean locker and no homework. Everyone hurries home exactly the same way. No one says good bye. I don't leave places that way. Can't.

I leave when the place is empty. When Roosevelt's deserted, after a show, and the lights are all out and the janitors have dissapeared and no one's around, the place is completely different. Your footsteps echo down the hall and you can linger and think whatever you like, talk, sing, listen to the place and think about it.

When camp was over this last year, I was the last person to leave (except maybe Coaster). The whole camp was quiet and empty, and I had time to see it turn off and go to sleep for the summer. Something was completely different about this empty place.

My elementary school was deserted the last time I was there. I just walked around, looking and thinking. For me, nothing was going to happen there that was going to matter to me again.

I leave last because I don't want to miss anything.

Well, this whole second semester, finals haven't seemed real: papers, grades, everything has seemed so completely dreamy. I'm leaving and everybody else still has school. Things will go on, and I won't be there for them. It's not miss in a sort of sad, "I want to do that" way, but miss in a sort of "I won't be there to do that" way.

Nothing seems final yet, but it's been final for more than a week. I'll have to do a bit of manoeuvering to get in a silent contemplative good-bye. Maybe the parties and the ceremony means that no one else wants one of those. But I know that I remember moments of looking and waving a silent good bye more than I do actually sayig it.

I didn't even think I was going to really miss it until a few minutes ago. I've let them get closer to me than I thought they would. I do care. Just, nobody needs to know.

I feel like kind of a hypocritical sap now, having written that. Ah well. What's done is done.