being out of school is the second best and weirdest feeling i've ever felt. I'M FINALLY FREE! i no longer feel like a kid. even though i am, i dont feel like it and it's the best delusionary feeling i've known yet. graduation was so incredibly magical. because of my last name, i was on the second to last row. but the last full row. so we had to wait an aching long time to be called. but when we did, oh man. when my row was cued to stand up, we all stood mostly together, just as we were trained to do multiple times the day before. butterflies took over my entire being, not just my stomach. they jolted through me, in through my feet and out the top of my head and they left me dizzy and a little unsure of what exactly was happening. it made perfect sense again though, as we started walking. i felt like running. i wanted to run. i wanted to pass everyone, screaming and dancing my way up to the platform. but i didnt, i just walked calmly and grinned the whole way up. at one point on the way, i heard my name yelled out and i looked up almost directly at my dad and my sister who was swollen with her child who was playing with our heads, threatening to come into the world early. i waved at them, crazy, like an idiot. the two girls i was sitting next to, they had become my best friends. the grass i was walking on felt like silk. the coach those two girls and i had previously been laughing at because he looked high suddenly became someone i loved a lot. that teacher lady who apparently remembered me from when i was in her class in ninth grade made me want to cry as she threw a thumbs up and an understanding grin at me. the girl i had become friends with first semester was three girls ahead of me. her name was called and i watched her walk and i felt like i lost her. we werent even that close of friends and the only thing that made her "mine" in any way was that she was my friend in second block, first semester. so i dont know why i felt like i lost her. i guess it's because she was on that side now, and i was still on this one. i couldnt believe she was already walking across the stage. i remembered talking about graduation with her months before that moment, and how it seemed like it would never come. but there we were. i looked over the sea of kids, my graduating class, and saw some people i had never seen before and others who i was very proud to see. i got up to the line. i was next. one lady to my left smiled at me and said, "when they start saying your name, you can go. and congratulations." then the coach who we laughed at for looking high was standing to my right. he looked over at me, stared at me for a second and then said, "are you ready?" and i laughed and said, "i've been ready since sixth grade." he just looked at me after that, then nodded, then said, "then, go." and as if on cue, the woman said, "anna faith thompson". i heard my family's and might-as-well-be sisters' faint screams coming from the back of that outdoor stadium. i shook three people's hands, i think, and got a picture of me holding my diploma at the bottom of the platform. i laughed to myself and it was done.
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