With only one week left of high school now, the end-of-year procedures have begun, and the nostalgia is hitting hard. AP tests are over, meaning the pressure has been removed from most of my classes, and what remains shouldn't be too hard. Seeing as I essentially only have a stats project left to do (really a glorified free-response problem), I've had some time to think the deep thoughts.
Today was locker clean-out. That's normally a joyous occasion, signifying the end of the work and a beginning of summer. It's one half of a cycle; you find your locker at the beginning of the year, and empty it at the end. In practice, however, clean-out seems to come first, and new lockers second. This is because the distance between clean-out and new locker is only three months, whereas the distance between new locker and clean-out is nine months. The two events serve less as bookends to the school year as they do for the summer. The summer begins with emptying your locker, and ends with getting a shiny new one.
My problem is that this time, the summer won't end with a new locker. I don't get to look forward to returning to old friends, perfecting my paths across the school and embracing my higher status in the school hierarchy. This time, it's over. This is it. At the end of this summer, I won't be returning to someplace familiar, someplace that has become a part of me through all the laughter and tears. I'll be in a whole new place, far from home, in a sea of strangers, trying to navigate the world I've been dropped into.
That realization is what led me to understand the true significance of my locker. This year, I didn't use it for much. In fact, I put my physics textbook in it on the first day of school, and didn't open it again until I needed to stash my lunch during AP tests two weeks ago. Why, then, should I be sad about letting it go?
The truth is, a locker isn't just a locker. I could've kept my physics book at home. Some would argue that I should have (though I assure you I have excelled in the class without it). I put that book in my locker because I didn't want it to be empty. My schedule did not require that I use it as extensively as I have in previous years, but I wanted to keep something in it anyway. A locker provides a sense of place, a feeling of belonging. It's your spot in the school, a link that ties you to the environment where you spend the craziest years you've ever lived through (thus far, of course). Having something in my locker made me feel that I had a place there. It was a sort of anchor, not something I consciously thought about, but something that was always there. And I think that subconscious stability helped me through what I believe to be my hardest year of school.
That's why it was painful for me to turn the knob and pull the lever for the last time, to take that dusty physics book back to the school library. When I walked away from that locker, I severed my last tangible tie to my school.
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad it's almost over. I never loved school, homework or getting up before dawn for swim practice. But this is the place where I've practically lived for years. This is where I've been through the good times and bad, growing up and learning new things, and trying to figure out who I am. This is where I met half my friends, and I know that there are some I'll likely never see again. All these things are integral parts of my high school experience. Those memories are tied to this place, and my locker is my slice of that place. It's a symbol of my identity.
So without a locker, what am I? In the past I've identified as a swimmer, a musician, a nerd. Those are all things connected to high school, and without that, what's left? All external sources of self-definition have been removed, and the next time I walk into a classroom, I'll have nothing to tell me what I am. This time, I'll have to discover what I'm really made of. And at the end of the day, once the dust settles, I can tell you I'm excited to find out.
Hic Manebimus Optime.
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