To, The Letter In My Closet
There are few moments in my life that can make me grin like an absolute fool. Such an event crossed my path while I was cleaning out my room in Albany, New York. As my family and I were bidding goodbye to our home, I wanted to dedicate a blog post about the few years we spent together in Albany. Maybe write about finding time to travel during weekends just so all of us could be together under one roof, or the annual family Christmas gatherings, or the walk with my siblings to Guptill's Coney Express Ice Cream, or the slice I shared with my friend at Paesan's pizza, or maybe even talk about the attempted runs along the neighborhood trail.
Little did I know, along with my greeting cards I received from my family and friends, I will find a letter in my closet that brought me back to my most cherished memories from high school. The nostalgic reading transformed me to the girl who was wearing her gray uniform pants and white shirt sitting in her grade 9 French class. I remember walking into that class after my morning Math class: my hair was covered in hair gel and tied back high in a pony tail, I was wearing shimmer red lip gloss that you could probably spot across the hallway, and not to mention I abused my eyes with eyeliner. Thank God for uniform because I knew exactly how a 14 year old me would have experimented with fashion. Ms. Kipp, our French teacher gave me my assigned seat information: far left third chair. Looking around, I never realized that one day in 2017 I would be sitting in my pajamas and wallow in emotions while reading a letter that I wrote more than a decade ago in that class.
The 10 months as a Libermann Falcon went by rather quickly. The conundrum with memories, whether it is a blessed one or a painful one, is the difficulty in choosing a favorite one. I mean from taking TTC early mornings to meeting new people to taking EQAO (but first worrying about it) to constantly getting in trouble in English class for talking too much to pronouncing no-frills like nostrils in geography class to innocently laughing at anything and everything absurd to badminton practices and games to saving my allowances to go out with my friends during lunch ...the reminiscing list goes on.
On our last day of classes before exam, Ms. Kipp handed out a blank sheet of white paper. She only had few instructions: use the sheet of paper to write anything about your first year in high school and don't open it until 2010. To this day, it's an enigma why she chose 2010. As she was handing out the sheets, I could hear distant voices in the background excited to write their memories, some voices laughing about this pointless "assignment", some asking if they can skip this class and write it at home...the usual 14 year old questions...
Fast forward to 2017, I continued to read the letter overwhelmed with emotions. Every sentence reminded me of a story; whether it happened in the hallways of Libermann or in a class room or in the cafeteria. If the letter didn't contain any "pinky promises" I would have posted it. For the lack of transparency, I think the picture of my face before the braces era is a good fix. And as for the letter, let's just say I used the word "freaky" more than 20 times in that one page letter. I did not know that was a popular word to a fob who immigrated to Canada three years ago before grade 9.
It really struck me that I was worried about moving to another school the following year. Although it seems like a minuscule thing to worry about now, I wrote about it in my letter as if it was the end of the world. As I am typing this post, I wanted to ask that 14 year old Atheena how she dealt with it? I guess even in 2017 certain events in my life can make me feel like it is the end of the world. Maybe the past me can assure the present me that life goes on. I mean DUH, I am sitting here smiling about the "problems" I needed to take care of in my letter. Who knows? Perhaps after few years I might find myself smiling again at the wonderful memories I created from my current "end of the world" moments.
In the end, I genuinely want to thank Ms. Kipp for making all of us write this letter. Clearly I didn't know any better when I was complaining by repeatedly asking "seriously, what am I going to do with this"? Thank you for reminding me that time heals everything.
Until next memory,
A. Ben
The 10 months as a Libermann Falcon went by rather quickly. The conundrum with memories, whether it is a blessed one or a painful one, is the difficulty in choosing a favorite one. I mean from taking TTC early mornings to meeting new people to taking EQAO (but first worrying about it) to constantly getting in trouble in English class for talking too much to pronouncing no-frills like nostrils in geography class to innocently laughing at anything and everything absurd to badminton practices and games to saving my allowances to go out with my friends during lunch ...the reminiscing list goes on.
On our last day of classes before exam, Ms. Kipp handed out a blank sheet of white paper. She only had few instructions: use the sheet of paper to write anything about your first year in high school and don't open it until 2010. To this day, it's an enigma why she chose 2010. As she was handing out the sheets, I could hear distant voices in the background excited to write their memories, some voices laughing about this pointless "assignment", some asking if they can skip this class and write it at home...the usual 14 year old questions...
Fast forward to 2017, I continued to read the letter overwhelmed with emotions. Every sentence reminded me of a story; whether it happened in the hallways of Libermann or in a class room or in the cafeteria. If the letter didn't contain any "pinky promises" I would have posted it. For the lack of transparency, I think the picture of my face before the braces era is a good fix. And as for the letter, let's just say I used the word "freaky" more than 20 times in that one page letter. I did not know that was a popular word to a fob who immigrated to Canada three years ago before grade 9.
It really struck me that I was worried about moving to another school the following year. Although it seems like a minuscule thing to worry about now, I wrote about it in my letter as if it was the end of the world. As I am typing this post, I wanted to ask that 14 year old Atheena how she dealt with it? I guess even in 2017 certain events in my life can make me feel like it is the end of the world. Maybe the past me can assure the present me that life goes on. I mean DUH, I am sitting here smiling about the "problems" I needed to take care of in my letter. Who knows? Perhaps after few years I might find myself smiling again at the wonderful memories I created from my current "end of the world" moments.
In the end, I genuinely want to thank Ms. Kipp for making all of us write this letter. Clearly I didn't know any better when I was complaining by repeatedly asking "seriously, what am I going to do with this"? Thank you for reminding me that time heals everything.
Until next memory,
A. Ben
Comments
Post a Comment