Dispatches from a Teenage Girl

Chapter 11

I walk into the auditorium. It's barely full since only seniors have been invited, well told to attend is more like it. This is it. Our first assembly about applying to college. This last year of high school thing is starting to feel real. And I can't find Claire and Grace.

Our principal starts talking and it is just a lot about how important this moment is in the rest of our lives and how we need to choose our next steps wisely. Choose something we are passionate about, but also be practical. What do you want to do for a living? What kind of career will excite you? Choose a path that will lead you to a career you will love... and also a career that exists.

I am starting to enjoy writing and sharing my writing and I can't imagine any high school career counsellor would recommend that path. Creative writing is right up there with acting – a difficult and narrow path to success. But I don't know what else I want to do. Right now, I just sort of want to run away. Run away from all of this. Run away from deciding on my future. Run away from having to talk about Bruce. Run away from having to think about Bruce. Run away from having to explain Sam. Run away from my friends' questions. Run away from senior year.

I snap myself out of my spinning and now someone from the guidance department is up talking about the online college application process. I have no idea what I have missed and she's so far into the click down menus and the options and the check boxes that I am totally lost.

In the summer, while working at that excruciatingly boring dentist office job, all I could think about was going to college. Going away to college has always been my end goal. I haven't really thought much further than that. I have always just wanted to go. But I always seem to skip the part about choosing a major and instead dream about the experience. Dream about my dorm room. Living away from home. Studying in the common area. Staying up late and cramming for exams with a group of friends. Going to my first college party, drinking beer and checking out cute boys. Making new friends and exploring a new town.

And here I am, the moment has come, and I am completely and utterly lost.

I look over and see that Grace and Claire are sitting together. They are enthralled by this woman. They are writing everything down and listening and nodding along with every word that she says. They are not lost. I'll have to borrow their notes.

Grace has always wanted to be a social worker. She loves helping people. She volunteers wherever and whenever she can. I am pretty sure she's already chosen her top three colleges. She has this whole thing under control.

On the other hand, while Grace is saving the world, Claire is going to be running the world one day. She wants to go to business school, then get her MBA and when she is done that, she wants to go to law school. It feels like she has been researching scholarships since elementary school. I have always taken comfort in the fact that if I ever find myself broke and lost, I will always have a place to crash in Claire's mansion.

But what do I want to do?

It's funny. I have always been able to picture my college graduation. With the whole cap and gown. Held in the football stadium at whichever giant school I choose to attend. We have a b-list celebrity give the commencement speech, maybe an author or a local news anchor. We all clap. And after it's done, I walk over to my mom and Bruce. Smiling widely. They are both so excited to be there to send me off to start my life as an adult. They always seem to be getting along in my dream. They have put the animosity aside because it isn't important in that moment. I am important.

Now that dream is broken and I don't know how to feel about it. Who knows if Bruce would have even shown up to my college graduation? I honestly never even pictured him making it to my high school graduation. I just figured college was a much bigger deal so he would for sure make the effort.