Cy vignette 2

My room is often in disarray with clothes on the floor and splayed out stationary on my desk. The one thing that seems to remain in the same place is my school I.D. card. It hangs delicately from a hook on the wall. Each morning I find my hands grasping the frame of the card and sliding it off the wall. I then hop in the car to school slowly waking up to the world. The first thing I do when I get to school is walk to the snack bar for a drink. This is the only time where I feel that the card holds any weight to me. The card is currency in a school where even admission is a signifier of wealth. The next time I’ll use the card will be lunch. Besides that I’ll use it to print whatever essay I have to turn in for my next class. I don’t really utilize the card in my everyday life yet everytime I look at it I feel the exact same.

This hollow feeling fills my senses when I gaze down at my card. I look at my face thinly smiling on the card and sense a disconnect. The person on the card seems so far from who I am. This person with shoulder length hair, bright eyes, and a genuine smile seems so foreign. The picture-perfect Punahou student is not what I see myself as. Sometimes I feel like I genuinely forget that I earned my place here; that someone saw me and thought that I exemplify what a Punahou student should be. I’m now a person with slightly longer than shoulder length hair, dulled eyes, with a line with slightly curled up edges for a smile. I am happy I suppose but it feels so toned down at this institution.

Over the years my I.D. has wildly transformed. In sixth grade my hair was long and my eyes were blinking, my smile still wide with a child-like sense of happiness. My approach on how to find my place in this school, this community was all over the place. I tried to find people with the same interests, but when I did my brain would tell me I should try to befriend those with more social currency. The one event this year that really made me feel like I was a part of the school culture was camp. Camp was a four day trip where we learned outdoor survival skills and made connections with people. It was the first time I truly felt like I wasn’t just the outsider looking in but one of the insiders. I was no longer the fish out of water. This also coincided with when I discovered the movie musical Grease which is one of my favorite movie musical adaptations.

My first carnival as a student followed shortly after. It was the last carnival that was presented to the public in its full glory. I have vivid memories of riding the Swings and sharing candy apples with people. In retrospect it’s kind of horrifying how my world went from sharing candy apples with my friends to the ushering in of the Covid-19 pandemic. The seventh grade school year was unique for many reasons, the most striking being the establishment of virtual learning. Due to this factor I never received an I.D. card for this year. God, it really put a dent in the collection I was hoping to establish. Much like the absence of an I.D. card I didn’t really have much of an outward personality. I kept to myself a lot, not having many friends. So, seventh grade was a pretty hard year which was only exacerbated by the fact that I had to learn how to do algebra online.

Eighth grade was actually a pretty spectacular year for me. While it wasn’t perfect it was most definitely my best year at Punahou by that point. Though the transition between seventh to eighth grade was uncharted territory. I feel that nothing demonstrates my point more than my I.D. card for this year. When I was taking the photo I thought that I was about to take the best goddamn I.D. photo in the history of the world. I remember thinking that I had the biggest grin printed on my face. Needless to say when I got my photo back I was thoroughly disappointed by the very tiny smile and somewhat disheveled hair in it. In due time I merged out of that photo.

I didn’t take an I.D. photo at the beginning of the ninth grade school year which is odd because I felt like l was on top of the world at this point. Even though I was on crutches, I severely overestimated my skateboarding skills, I was making connections with so many old friends and new people. When I finally got my picture taken on fall activity day I felt like it solidified who I had become since I came to this school. I was an extroverted, happy, secure student for the first time in a bit.

Now I am about to enter sophomore year and I am eagerly awaiting what my I.D. card will display. Will I be a confident, cool high schooler? Or will I be sent back to square one? Either way I think that I am ready for what comes next.