The Return

Last year is not gone yet. It is intact, fully fledged, and deliciously vivid in my memory as the best year of my life. But calendar pages turn past June and into September and all of that pent-up enthusiasm melts into a school year sure to be dotted with meltdowns and covered in midnight studying. We, the classmates, have dispersed, and far from our mothership, we are alien and strange. Already I sit at the back of the room, avoiding any opportunity to embarrass myself in front of clean slates who might one day be friends. Already I doodle on the cover of my music binder through lectures. Already I eat lunch in the computer lab, madly typing away on my English assignment. Already bits of the old me have become woven into the new one again, stained and frayed at edges.

It was clear to me on the subway this afternoon that the flair and exuberance that had sprouted out of me a year ago is withering. M2, J2, and R had not cut their hair, or grown more than an inch or so, or bought a collection of blacks to tuck away in a closet, chasing after their alternative side. If I closed my eyes, I could remember the way it felt to be amongst the warmth in their voices, and I could pretend we all had the same schedules in the front pockets of our bookbags. "Look, watch this bottle of Gatorade. Even if we fall over, it won't - no really trust me!" "Oh yeah?" "Most definitely!" The aquamarine sugar water danced around the rim from the Upper East to Alphabet City to Chinatown, but never spilled - M2 is usually right about these things. I can still reach out and come within inches of remembering her birthday... but the exact date has gone with the rest of her, away from me.

In fifty years, I'll look back, and last year will still be the best of my life. E2 put it best: "You can't expect the same. Last year was special." Every second was laced with perfections: J3, dubbed the Majestical Tricorn, blurting out something about a rogue potato. (Inside joke.) D apologizing in advance of everything, citing the Latin room electrocution incident with a miles-wide grin. (Inside joke.) The day we all skipped class to cry in front of each other and a counselor's yellow notepad. (Inside joke.) Each face, emblazoned with a soon-to-be-signature laugh, staying with me until I die, young forever (inside my heart.)