Trapped In The Margins

I began to clean my room yesterday and that meant finally going through all the papers that I threw on the floor. I made my Summer to-do list and set out on completing everything on the list. Today I felt better despite my room looking a complete mess. I felt lighter and ready to sort through a bag full of papers and miscellaneous items while at work. The day was going smoothly but then I received some sad news on the phone. It felt as though I ate sand and it settled to the bottom of my stomach. I felt a heaviness that I haven’t felt in years. The news weighted me down like a ton of bricks. I should say that its inevitability should have lessened the blow. However, sad news is sad, no matter how one delivers it.

The news involves a ghost from my past. Enough time has passed and the news hurts me instead of bringing feelings of elation. There have been whispers that my elementary school will be demolished. I spent 10 years of my life there, The church that I grew up in will be officially closed in two weeks. My childhood is literally being destroyed and it breaks my heart. I might have welcomed the news ten years ago but I am no longer a bullied 13-year-old child. I am a 23-year-old adult and I have grown up. It hurts to see the things that made me who I am disappear before my eyes and in my lifetime. I can never visit these places again because they will never tangibly exist again. They will only exist in my memories and memories don’t last forever.

The elementary school was a small building that looked like a child’s block. I made my very first friend there in September 1996. She would be my “frenemy” for the next 15 years. I had my first crushes at that school. I ran up and down the school yard with my friends. I talked about wrestling with my best guy friends. I was given the special privilege of clapping erasers outside. I loved to wash the chalkboard. I helped teachers. I made friends and I learned some pretty tough lessons. That school of the arts broke me but it gave me things in which I will be forever grateful.