the old days.

Pardon me while I get a little reminiscent here. I had the urge to go through my old pieces from when I was in journalism in high school, which led to me looking through old pictures and thinking about how weird it is that we're all where we are now.


Some are frat boys, some are drug addicts, some are married, some are pregnant, some are gay, some are a complete mystery to me, some live in the same town as me, 800 miles from where we grew up. The pictures to follow are missing some people who were crucial parts of my high school life, but they give the general picture, and they remind me of some good times.

This was Corina's....17th?...birthday. All I remember is that it consisted of a lot of bowling, ice cream cake, and some sort of kissing game or dare. I know, we were scandalous.

 

I wish I kept in touch with some of these people. They were some of the funniest people I've ever met.

I have a confession. After I got my drivers license my sophomore year, I missed (ditched) a lot of school. I got really good at forging my dad's signature. He knew. But I was getting good grades regardless and wasn't doing drugs or anything obviously, so he let it slide. I love him. So much of the time that I should've been in school was spent doing things like this with my school-ditching partner in crime:

(airplane, if you couldn't tell)

 This one just makes me laugh. I just remember being pounced on, and someone caught a picture of it. If you look closely, you can see that Corina was sporting U of I swag way back in the Union Mine days. Circa 2007?

And here was one of my favorite things I wrote back then. I wrote this my sophomore year, and after it the teacher (Mr. Chaney. I <3 him.) made me the editor for the next two years. I wasn't as emo as I sounded, I promise.

It's what's on the inside that counts. How many times have we heard this line before? Whenever we are hurt by some sort of superficial judgment, we are reminded by our parents, our friends, and our society that it is what is on the inside that matters. You are beautiful on the inside. That line of advice never really helps anybody feel better though, does it? It's outdated, overused, brushed off by everyone. And it should be. Why, because this line is a lie. Your insides aren't pretty. They're bruised, scarred, torn to pieces. Your heart is cracked or shattered, held together by nothing but time. Your mind is haunted by the past; by memories that never fade, only tucked away so you can make it through the day. Your throat is charred from all the words that never left your lips, just swallowed no matter how much they may have burned. Your stomach worn thin from all the times you denied your gut feelings and pushed it down a little deeper. Bruised, cracked, charred, and worn. Now does that honestly sound the least bit pretty to you? If you want to get down to it, nobody is pretty. Even the most gorgeous person on earth has some ugly, disfiguring marks on the inside. People are amazing like that; we shove everything away and tuck it into the deepest places hoping it will never resurface. We fake happiness, smiles, and perfection. Anything just so we are seen as beautiful. There are so many sides, so many unseen and forgotten crevices to every person.  Maybe that's the beauty. We're all broken; none of us are truly pure anymore. Our insides aren't the least bit pretty, but they're still amazing. All those scars, burns and bruises are what make us alive.  Alright, back to September 2011. I live in Idaho, I'm getting married in 8 weeks, and I talk to maybe 1/8 of the people I was friends with 5 years ago. That's sad, yeah, but there were good times and we moved on and grew up. All those people have a nice little niche in my heart and I wish them the best in everything they do.