high school – Loan Le

Ah, fuck.

When a Facebook invite to my five-year high school reunion popped up on my phone, my reaction was not one of excitement but one of mortification. Oh god, the memories. Oh god, TENACIOUS 10.

Like a girl’s menstruation cycle on its second day, the remembrance of struggling with inadequacy and anonymity, of unspoken crushes, of constant preoccupation about my future came flooding back. Then, this horrible thought: shit, nothing about me had changed.

After graduating high school, I made a mental checklist of where I’d want to be when the five-year mark happened. Doesn’t everyone? I had this idea that if I completed this checklist, I’d have officially redeemed myself, shown immense improvement from what I was in the past.

What would lead to said redemption? Five star ratings in the following categories:

Career – I’m gonna be successful
Social life/relationships – I’m gonna have a significant other, otherwise known as bae
Health – I’m gonna have ZERO cellulite
Knowledge – I’m gonna be smarter than all of these motherfuckers . . . Hmm, what? No one thinks that? Just me then, I guess.

Rating myself now, I’d give myself Eh stars in each category.

Cue introspection. As I went over this checklist, and as I thought about it more (ugh, thinking is dangerous), I fell into yet another endless pit of looped 50-minute insecure thoughts that mostly revolved around what I hated about myself as a high school student. I was quiet — a specimen whose name might inspire slight recognition from my classmates. I was terrified of being forgotten and in fact, I wrote my college essay about my desire not to dissipate into a black hole, not to become a somebody in the yearbook. I was also closed off, and again, that was mostly my doing. Sure, I had a core group of friends (which sadly had grown apart over the years), but after graduation, I remembered regretting not getting to know certain people who seemed pretty damn cool from afar. Also, I had a vague idea of what I wanted to do in life, and felt almost guilty that I was planning on majoring in English, the most common major for the indecisive . . .

Okay, see that? That’s all negative thinking. Now, I imagine if I had enough money for a therapist, I’d be given this advice: Stop thinking that way. If all these thoughts were yours, you should be able to stop them.

That’s what I’ve done over the years. These I-should-have, why-didn’t-I, pity-me thoughts have no place in my life. And any self-mocking on my part is just that — self-deprecation (sort of). I enjoyed college immensely, made lasting friends, and paved a way to my dream career. I mean, every day I look into my mirror and I know that I’m doing what I love as my job. I’m living in Brooklyn. I’m finally ~~hunting~~ putting myself out there. I’m starting a great MFA program and look forward to being published one day. I’M A FUCKING INDEPENDENT WOMAN. (All of this, I should note, is scrawled on my mirror in blood.) Why should high school matter so much? I’m not defined by who I was, but by who I am and will be. [To be honest, my bad memories are superficial; I could have had it worse, but didn’t. Example: I was never bullied (not like in my younger years). Or, thankfully, I wasn’t aware of being bullied.]

I made great memories at CHS. I loved working on the newspaper. I loved my friends. I looked forward to orchestra class and chemistry class taught by Bertenshaw, who could have also been a philosophy teacher instead. I still remember my junior year AP Language Comp class with Ms. Yamamoto. In this class we wrote Occasional Papers, or personal narratives, that really allowed us to develop our writing voices. We were Admiral’s Soldiers. When we received our college acceptances, we made our own posters and hung it up all around Ms. Yamamoto’s office. There was magic in that class, and I will always cherish this time.

Now that I’ve typed all of this out, I’m actually excited about my high school reunion. It’s an opportunity to catch up with people (read: go into stealth mode). Some are engaged, some are married (kids?!). Others have awesome jobs. Yeah, I know this because of Facebook. I’m excited to see how people have changed. Will the bitches still be bitches? Has anyone come out? Did anyone get a sex change? These are, after all, important questions.

If everything goes to hell at this reunion, then at least I’ll be inspired to write a blog post or a dark short story in which the characters will strongly resemble my high school classmates.

If things go even more south than that, then at least I’ll have ~~margaritas~~ burritos to knock back, because our classy reunion will take place at Aunt Chilada’s.

I’m glad to report that I do not wear pink anymore.

Ha, what a NERD. Who spends time in the library lik wat iz reeding?

A week before graduation (wow, six months ago?), a creative writing professor asked us to write letters to send to ourselves. I’d gotten mine in September, and it’s taped to the wall, right above my writing desk. Whenever I hit a writer’s block, I look up from my computer screen and stare at this letter.

This letter reminds me of promises that I had made. Most of the time, however, this letter funnily reminds me that inside this petite Asian body is a character I imagine to be similar to Clint Eastwood …

Dear Loan,

You’re probably still procrastinating and wondering if your novel is “worth it,” if your writing in general is “worth it.” You always doubt yourself, you always go back and forth with your ideas, and you always say, “I’ll write it soon.” I want to tell you to stop that bullshit.

Sit the fuck down and write.

And when you can’t, go outside, wherever you are, and observe the things going on around you. Create a story for the people who walk with their heads down, for the people who look angry or upset. Look for the houses that look abandoned, the cracks on the road … let yourself be inspired by the broken.

Then go back and

1. Work on your novel.

2. Say ‘hi’ to your family.

3. Work on your short stories.

Love,

Loan

Sit the fuck down and write. Maybe I should copyright that phrase. Does anyone want to buy a poster? No, no one?

Whatever. I think you might like this, too–here’s something I wrote in 2009, back when I was just getting serious with my writing (completely unedited, unfortunately). I read it the other night, and I was surprised by how fervent I sounded as a high school junior.

(By the way, does anyone use Facebook’s Notes section anymore? That’s where I had posted this letter. To save myself from embarrassment, I have since deleted all of my notes.)

My Purpose

I find myself contemplating about my purpose in life. I suppose this can relate to everyone has been lost before. It’s a narcissistic quality that is innate in all humans–the feeling that you were made to do something. Feeling, deep down, that some divine power had placed you on earth for a singular purpose. Believing that you were genetically designed to do one thing that could affect the process of our metaphysical world. Unfortunately, it just takes an insane amount of time to find a niche.

These thoughts of mine had resulted from a digression in self-esteem. It has been going for the past few days, I admit. Grades, friends, family…I took a hit one day, staggered, got hit with another, and finally, I fell. After this, the world ceased to make sense to me.

I don’t want to make a difference. That’s right. I don’t. Personally, I’m simply not capable of changing the way the world runs. Some people dream of creating inspiring and brilliant theories in science and math and stuff like that. Me? I’m not gong to invest my time to try and reach something that’s best to be left high in the sky. But I do want to be noticed. Do you have to bring a change if you want to be recognized? What reasons make people look at you with respect and awe?

I want to be a writer, plain and simple. But I can’t find the main driving force behind my desire. Perhaps I never will. Do I have to have one reason?

Do I want to write in order to be recognized? That’s one question.

Yes, I suppose I do.

Do I want to write because it makes me feel great?

Hell yes. Solved.

Writing is…indescribable. I love the smell of graphite that reaches my nose whenever my pencil caresses paper. I love hearing the words that I write echo in my head, in the way I intend them to be said, heard, and felt. I love the perplexity that I feel when I can’t find this one word…and I love trying to sift through the files of my mind to find it.

And when I do, the word fits snugly into the puzzle that is my sentence. Suddenly, it all makes sense. I love the fact that nothing is finished until a period is meticulously dotted. That a stretching sea of beautiful bountiful blue will forever go on until I write “and then it was drained of all water”. I love the pictures that are painted by my words and pencil (No paint, no mess). That when I used the world “pencil”, I only saw me and my red Coca Cola pencil against my piece of paper. I love the feeling of my pencil in my hand, because it’s like my hand has molded itself to let my pencil, my creative extension, fit. There’s a mark made by my pencil on the third finger, and it’ll remind me of my writing which will forever be etched in my soul.

No one has told me my purpose. At certain times, I feel like I have none. Like someone had just put me on earth for entertainment, to watch and laugh at whenever they feel sadistic.

Other times, like the moment that had occurred two minutes ago while I was writing this, I know what I need to do. And I will let no one tell me what I can and should do. It’s me who has to find a purpose. And my purpose is to write. Therefore, I am a writer.

I guess I don’t want to let my 16-year-old-self down. Better keep writing.

Photographed by Alyssa Coffin in 2008?

HSR, High School Reunion, Holy Shit Really.

Letters to myself