That school is still a prison. Small, dark, enclosed hallways with no windows. They try to brighten it up with colored lockers, murals, and pictures on the walls, but it's still a prison. You don't notice it while you're in it, but when you go back you know why you felt miserable, oppressed, and almost inhuman while you were there. It wasn't just the miserable, angsty years of thirteen and fourteen: it was that state penitentiary of a school. It was Glen Meadow Middle School.
You would think that with a sweet, cheery name like "Glen Meadow" it would be a nicer place. You imagine a nice school with flowery gardens, lush hills, and lots of light...I bet you do. It's not that. Even from the outside it looks like a prison. It's a dark brown color. Metal. It's not even fully brick. There's a wrap around deck sort of structure that isn't really used for anything besides fire drills, which always sort of struck me as something not just designed to train students for proper fire procedure. Who forgets how to exit a school properly after years of training to do it? It always seemed shady to me. There's no flowers around Glen Meadow: no gardens. It's just field. Field where unless you're athletic, you're humiliated and forced to run eight laps...or you fail gym for that day. Field where you're doomed if you're the fat kid. There's basketball hoops in front of it that I'm not sure were ever used by anyone. At least the prisoners get to use their basketball hoops.
It's the school where the light ends at the front doors.
I observed four classes there on Friday for my Educational Psychology class. I knew all four teachers. They're still the same. Mrs. Trouax is still a fun, down to earth, but strict teacher. Mrs. Lawson is still bright and sunny. She connects well with the students. She's plump, but you can't take your eyes off those curves. The thin admirers wouldn't be able to either. Even for her age she's sexy. Ms. Cleary even looks the same: tall and large with flaming red hair. She still has that warm smile and those friendly eyes, and she's as young as she ever was even though she's aged eight years since I first met her in 2001. The projects she assigns are still as innovative and fun as they were when I was in eighth grade. The rooms are still the same drab, dull tan rooms with little to any decoration on the walls...desks arranged in rows.
As I looked around those hallways...experienced that school for the first time in a long, long time...I really took it in and I felt myself experiencing all those spots that meant so much to me at the time. I didn't know it then, but they made me. Ms. Kaiser's doorway where we always "hung out" after class and talked about the 2000 election after class. It was funny because she always had to rush me out because she was so afraid I'd miss my bus. Her old desk where I stood next to her as she sat on the last day. I told her I loved her like my own mother....I did. I was invited to her wedding the next year. Mr. Jensen's old room: room 110. I had the biggest crush on him. His new room is Mr. Breach's old room. He was my Science teacher in 7th grade. That's when I first saw Dr. Lepse. I fell in love with her then, I think. Mr. Jensen's fat now, and bearded. He looks like the Brawny paper towel guy. I saw that upstairs hallway by Mr. Carter's room where Breann, my first girlfriend, and I used to hug before I went into eight grade Social Studies...seventh period before Dr. Lepse's eighth period Science class. People used to snicker. We were the first "lesbians". I didn't get a chance to see the gym, though. Or the changing rooms where all us girls used to line up and talk to each other. Or the cafeteria. Oh...lunch. Probably one of the only good parts about both those miserable years.
But even though Glen Meadow hasn't changed, and never will change, I've changed. And she's changed. I saw the age lines in her forehead...signs that she's worried. She's aged. Her eyes have sunken a bit, and her hair has gone from metallic silver to perhaps a little more grey. However...she's still the most beautiful woman in the world to me, just like she always was and probably always will be. She was the only thing, and not that I'm objectifying her, that made that awful eighth grade year bearable.
I'm not that awkward, strange, freakish creature I was when I was an eighth grader. I'm softer now...more feminine, and not as loud. She's not as loud. She's softer, too. But that school is still a prison. It will ALWAYS be a prison.
She told me that I'm beautiful. She flirted with me a little. I don't know if I will ever worry about my appearance in the same way ever again.
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