Gracie Girl Blog

I was supposed to go to a basketball game at my old highschool Friday night, but I didn’t. It was the boys from my new school playing my old school. I decided I was too tired, that it was too far, and immediately guilt set in.  I didn’t go to the girls game either, just seven minutes away from my house. Double guilt.

But really, why didn’t I go? I had to ask myself this question because normally long drives and just “I’d rather stay home” don’t stop me from seeing people and doing things. But lately, it has.

Maybe it’s not the long drive, maybe it’s the long drive alone.

Maybe it’s not that I don’t want to see my friends, but that walking into yet another place alone hurts too much.

Maybe walking back into the highschool I loved and hated to leave was too much and something inside me just said no.

I babysat near my old school Saturday night. The house was in the same neighborhood my Young Life leader used to live in. We had some great conversations hanging in her house.

Driving home I passed the gas station that despite it being on the left side of the road, I always used to get gas while driving to school (because if you are going to be late to anywhere because you had to get gas- it might as well be school). For some reason I only discovered the one on the RIGHT side of the road the last two weeks of school.

I drove through the intersection that I crossed everyday for two years.

I passed the Tex-Mex restaurant that I have been to a few times with my family, but the most memorable time was with my friends after attending the funeral of our friend’s father. Our hearts were heavy but we were thankful to be together and smiling.

I passed through all the same lights (many with cameras on them) that took my sister and I home each day.

I passed the place we had gotten our Christmas tree for so many years.

I passed the Starbucks I hung out at with my YL leader and the one my sister and I got coffee at the very last day of school. I also got coffee for one of my best friends because it was important to me to be able to walk through school holding coffee cups one last time together.

I passed the turn into our old neighborhood that felt so far away from school. Ha. Passing it felt like it was the closest it could possibly be to my old world.

All of these things, I took for granted. I took for granted how the long drive to school allowed for so much pre-school pump up music. I took for granted feeling like I knew everyone. I took for granted feeling safe knowing I was going to be there for the next four years.

Everyone complains about how much they hate their school. About how they have the most party people or how there are somehow more idiots here than anywhere else.

No. You don’t hate your school. You don’t wish it was different. You don’t wish you went somewhere else and other schools aren’t magically better. People walk too slow in the hallways everywhere.

I don’t know how to sit in a gym and root for both teams. I don’t know how to answer the “Do you like your new school” question because some days I’d die to be back at Fairfax and other days I think things might work out, that I might make real friends here.

I am still very much figuring this out. It’s messy and hard and I can’t begin to tell you how weird and tough it has been, but not the massive trainwreck of a season I expected it to be.

Some days I love winning football games.

Other days I wish I had more time to drive and jam before school.

“For I know the places I have for you” declares the Lord, “Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Jeremiah 29:11