Repression is sometimes a good thing...

It is a semi-formed Deja-Vu; just recently flashbacks have become their vivdest. See, the middle school that I attended is where I have been a “math” teacher for the past week. The first time I subbed it was a little weird, but it was a short assignment and was surreal, but uneventful; I mostly noted the differences between then and now. However, this is the week before Halloween. And I have been here for five steady days with the same group of students and teachers.

What have been vague subconscious memories of first time experiences and adolescent extremes are flooding back as I walk the halls, see familiar faces and recognize friends and myself in the unchanging examples of pre-teen youth.

There are still the “Breakfast Club” clichéd. The ones who push the limits, who don’t care and who just want some attention. I find middle school the easiest and most fun of the grades to teach in the U.S. right now. They test a teacher. Testing limits of patience and inner strength, this same patience and strength, which allows for men to climb Mt. Everest. They want attention, freedom and for the future to be today. It is this drive for the future and their determination to drive towards breaking the will of the folks around them that make for such an interesting day.

The Halloween dance is tonight. There are still the students who think it is too lame to attend. The ones who are “super excited and have the best costumes ever!!!” and the ones who will go, but make fun of it the whole time they are there.

I remember that my Uncle Charlie chaperoned the eighth grade Halloween dance. I remember when my friend Irene freaked out the night we had a sleep over when her then boyfriend, Travis, admitted to smoking pot. Irene broke up with him and I was intrigued, but he told me I wasn’t allowed to try pot. I wasn’t that type of girl. I remember painting the murals that still adorn the walls. The first heartache, the first adventures of trying to do everything…It all came back this week—memories of awkward moments that have been repressed for years and that I will repress again tonight, because why would anyone want to go back when they can keep moving forward?