Small Reminders
THE (UN)EXPERIENCE OF GRAD: CHAPTER 2
Written by: Blue Acacia
It’s a warm sunny afternoon in June where orange tints the scenery and the walls emanate heat. I set myself up to go to the event at my school, partially wishing my dad doesn’t have to drop me so I can exist amongst the outside for a bit. He doesn’t budge.
I first get myself ready in a business casual-esque fit. I wear a tight lavender blouse and black dress pants with a little flare. As I look at myself in the mirror, I feel a pot of professional bliss boil deep in my body. The pot begins to bubble over and crack. For once, in the pandemic, I feel confident.
Putting on my grad gown is hard. The main piece is hard to get into since the zip doesn’t go that far and I am fully clothed. Once on, the gown is extremely long. It touches my feet. I add to the imagined graduation ceremony: a terrifying ending where I trip and fall off the stage because of my gown.
When my dad and I leave, the street is packed. From the school to the stoplights by the plaza, everywhere is jammed with cars. Music blasts from the speakers on a truck with the vice-principals on it. They pump their fist in the air and raise the roof as their truck circles the busy school parking lot. No one aside from them is dancing.
My dad parks at the side of the road by the school’s parking lot. I make sure to tell him, perhaps too many times to be convincing, that it would be a quick trip.
Get the $40 yearbook. Get the diploma. Get the photos. No nostalgia for pre-pandemic classroom times and friendships. No realization that things cannot be the same after this. No remembrance that I’ll have to abandon this school that I never felt a part of for the past year and a half.
The place is packed with graduates in their gowns. In my eyes, slick with evening humidity, I don’t recognise anyone. It’s like I’m at the wrong school. Like I arrived at a different ceremony. Like everyone is playing a prank on me and deciding not to come out from the bushes to laugh.
Faces I’m supposed to know are all blurring, sinking into themselves. Each face has its own hole, where the puzzle piece that makes up who they are is supposed to be. Everyone is a stranger. This uncanny valley sweeps away my confidence like a hot wind.
The lineup area is a red carpet, although I don’t notice the red carpet until a teacher points it out. The line is long-ish. The aspect holding the line up more than it should is the group of teachers and secretaries frantically shoveling through items to find each student’s things.
I realize too late that maybe I should’ve coerced my sister into coming. Everyone has a friend, family member, a group to rely on for photos. I have myself. I don’t take selfies. Not even mirror selfies. I don’t see myself through photos because I stare at myself in the mirror long enough to know how I look. Photos never feel genuine.
I see myself through my art. Through other people. Through words. Through stories with unnamed protagonists.
When it comes my turn, I forget wanting to take a photo in the first place. I attempt a beeline to the desk with the items, but my principal stops me. She asks, far too energetically, if I have someone to take my photo. My mouth remembers it doesn’t work well in unplanned social situations and now I’m quietly stumbling to tell her that I have no one. She smiles and beams that she will take my photos.
I take photos under the silver (grey) and purple banner that hangs under that location for two months after the event. I look a lot happier in the photos than I felt, dragging myself through the school year like it’s heavy luggage. In those photos, I am a balloon left to the sky. Let go from the shackles of my mattress, my school, my neighbourhood, and allowed to exist.
The photo session goes by quickly and I go to grab my things from the desk. I wave at my French teacher. We share “hellos” instead of “bonjours” but it’s still a decent experience.
I get my items and begin my return to my dad’s car when I see someone I know. It’s a sudden lit candle in an empty room. Like a moth I flock to her. We accidentally hug, me stumbling into her much shorter and thicker frame perfectly by accident. The moment is short. But it’s her ability to stand out in a crowd of strangers that somehow reminds me I’m welcome. I’m not as alone as I feel.
That’s meant to be the goal of every online meeting, group chat, and workshop. To remind us that we are not alone. That we can connect with one another and enjoy each other’s company. That even when I am kept in a cream-coloured room and an addictive mattress, there’s someone out there that thinks of my existence.
I didn’t understand this goal back then.
When I get home, I take an extra photo in front of my mirror of my fit without my grad gown. I hide my face with a giant heart. I sip the confidence of my look in small teaspoons. Like sweet cereal milk. Like honey for a sore throat.
Blue Acacia is a creative writing student at OCAD with a passion for the mundane, personal, and fantastical.
