Zombie Invasion

There are hundreds, maybe thousands of books out there on what to expect in high school, just like what to expect when you're having a baby. They give you the basics in a nice, organized order with an index to boot and tell you how to make it out alive. They talk about peer pressure, drugs, alcohol, homework. The ushe. And in the end high school is always, "The best years of your life!" Exclamation point, smiley face, cheesy thumbs up and all (with the help of this book, of course!)

I hate to admit it, but I've read more than one of them. Maybe not the "How to Survive High School" book exactly, but a lot of stories that stereotype high school. A lot of what happens in those books is pretty true to life, but none of them say a single thing about this. I wish they would have. Then maybe I could have prepared. But no. I always thought I could rely on books, but this time they've left me out to dry.

It's half-way through second quarter (Literally. Mid-terms were on Monday, people.) and even the underclassmen reek of what has been affectionately termed "senioritis." I feel like my arms are going to fall off every day and almost collapse when I realize I'm only carrying two folders and a notebook. This lethargy won't leave and I know I am not the only one who feels it.

Looking down the hall I can just tell: we are all headed for one, total and utter senior-class mental breakdown.

When I look around the school I replace people's clothes with straight jackets so they're all hugging themselves instead of their books. I picture the white stone turned to white padding. It's not that difficult to do, and when the picture is complete it looks just about right.

Does anyone else feel it? I know you do. Everyone is freaking out, and if they haven't already, they're about to. I'm waiting for the day we all get shipped off to therapy. We need to just admit it: We are all done with this place, but we just can't pinpoint why. We can't explain it. Nothing has changed, but our feelings toward everything has. It's like being on autopilot, and knowing you're on autopilot, and not being able to gain control again. You want to do something out of the ordinary, something strange, just to see if it can pull you out of this rut. (I've been contemplating dying my hair black, myself.) You want to get out and think for yourself but at the same time you know you think too much and if you're fully allowed to think to yourself you worry about what you might think, so maybe not thinking at all is the better option?

Please allow me to speak for anyone that has been, is, or will be a senior. We are 17 and 18 years old, and somehow feel the world expects us to know what we want to do with the rest of our lives. "We are the future," and all the rest of the bull that makes us feel like the fate of the world is on our shoulders. Parent, teachers. Our entire adolescent lives they've been telling us about the "read world," whatever the hell that's supposed to be. Half of that time we spent believing that somehow, the "real world" was none of our concern and that we had time before we had to deal with it.  The second half of that time we've spent yearning for it, wanting nothing but to get out of this damn "fish bowl" called high school. We've been watching the time tick by, waiting for time to be up.

Now the timer is going off. Ding, fries are done, but we don't want them any more. All that time we thought we had has slipped away out the window and down the street past the second star to the left and on til morning. We keep hitting snooze, but the time seems to get shorter with ever push of the button. You can't sleep in forever, sweetie. At some point you have to wake up and greet the day.

It's effing hard  to be a teenager right now. Has it ever been easy? I wonder if everyone goes through this their senior year. I've heard they do, like it's the one thing every senior goes through but no one talks about because this is supposed to be the best year of our life, after all.

And I swear. I'm trying to make it the best year of my life because I've always been told to enjoy it now, but it's so difficult to do it when you can't figure out why you're doing the things you're doing and you have to quit doing things you used to love because you aren't in the right mental state to make the commitment to it anymore. It's a sad day when the people you love feel like you don't love them because you've been distant and apathetic lately and you try to explain over and over again what's going through your head and how you love them so much it hurts but you have to make time to love them because if you don't you'll forget to because you think you're losing your mind and you have a mental disease and you fear for your sanity and-----

It's so hard for other people to hold on to you when you struggle to hold on to yourself. So when you find that moment when you're no longer on autopilot, like when you're driving down the road with a couple friends, windows down in the dark at 8:45 on a Wednesday, blasting Katy Perry through the radio so loud you think your speakers might spontaneously combust, when you find that moment you stretch it out as long as you can because you know that the high of living will only last until you crawl into your bed.

I'm trying to find that thing that makes me happy that I don't have to cling to for a short while and stretch out. I'm trying to find it and trying to switch out of autopilot and trying to explain myself to people who can't understand all at the same time, and it makes me freaking tired. We are all tired. We walk down the hallways and sit in class like zombies.

I'm just waiting for the thing that snaps us all out of it.

Now go watch this --> everything will be ok : Don Hertzfeldt