I'm standing on the Football field looking out on an absolute mess. Chairs are screwn all over the place with what was left of an isle right down the middle. Balloons are floating and flying from the goal post and stage. Programs and other various papers on the ground. And all I wanted to do was go home and Crash!
*Back up about 12 hours.*
Graduation Day.
A compilation of 12 years leading up to this.
One final night with all of my classmates -most of whom I'd been with since Kindergarten...a few even from Mrs. Lytle's Preschool class that was held at the local Library. In the past 12 years- these people had been the most fun, the most frustrating, and the most extraordinary people. Our world had almost revovled around each other for so long-it was gonna be a little weird to not have them around every single day after this night.
A few memories that ran through my mind as I'm in the changing room with the other girls putting on our caps and gowns.
Sitting in our first period class US Government. All of us arguing our opinions and point of views. Debate got pretty heated in that classroom-sometimes I was pretty sure that some of us would leave school madder than heck at each other. But as soon as that bell would ring-all argument and disagreement was forgotten and we'd go back to talking to each other about the upcoming game-what we were gonna do that weekend-or just any goofy thing we could think up.
Those "fun" days that we would get to disect things in Science class.
4th Grade: playing soccor against the 5th graders... with our "secret" weapon Mr.J ...knowing full well that we would soon be playing against him when we moved on to be 5th graders.
Those incredibly awkward Junior High dances.
The first year of high school chillin out over at the Freshman lockers. Looking down the hall and checking out all of the older cooler students.
My first date.
Conversation on bus trips on away games.
Coming home after a big win...
coming home after a loss.
The crisp Autumn nights during the Football Season.
The FUN days of Homecoming week.
The deafening scream of the homecourt fans-young and old- in the basketball gym during the last minutes of a game. Surrounded by tons of State Champion plaques that had been collecting since the 1950s. These would be some of the last days for this gym to be used before the new gym was finished.
Christmas Breaks when we girls would get together and have a sleep over.
The warmer days of Baseball and Softball when most of us girls were hoping to get our legs as tan as our arms were.
Cheerleading...nuf said :)
50 to 100 car caravans after winning State Championships.
The Senior T (Toast....more like Roast) that we had earlier that the week with all the funny stories that were told by the parents and teachers.
This had been a very exciting and exhausting day. We had started early to get everything set up for the Graduation Ceremony. Putting up chairs and a wheeling in a hay trailer to be used as the stage. Getting programs finished and printed off. Jumping over to the last few hours left of the school day to get our final yearbooks signed and autographed :)
Now we were just minutes away from walking down the big walk. Camera flashes were going off to forever document this day for us. We were all lined up...and somehow we still managed to get a few things mixed up with the order-even though we had been in basically the same alphabetical order for years and years :) I couldn't help but take a moment to just reflect. With three older siblings before me and a Dad that spent close to 30 years teaching and coaching here- I knew that I was to be the last Anhder kid to roam the halls of PVHS. Of some great magnitude that deep thought was :)
The ceremony was great I'm sure :) I don't really remember much from it just because I was so incredibly excited for the great partying that would happen after everything was said and done there.
"I present to you the Pahranagat Valley High School Class of 2005!"
and we tossed our caps into the air while Green Day's "Time of your Life" blared from the speakers.
That was it. It was done.
About a skillion pictures and a million hugs later- we finally found ourselves at Grad Night. We all packed our cars up with many many gifts and prizes from the last few hours.
So here I was - in the wee hours of the morning...still with all of my classmates.....cleaning up the football field from all of the nights festivities. Thinking to myself...besides the fact that I was way way tired... :) This was the last time I'd see some of these people. Being together for most of our lives---how does one pick up and move on. The only people besides your family that had seen you at your best and at your worst. The people who had also been a constant in your life. The people who you would argue with til you were blue in the face but in a heartbeat-you'd also defend them til you were blue in the face. You'd wanna kill em-but you'd also kill for them.
You find only a few friendships like that in life.
Now almost 6 years later- we've now got under our belts a few marriages and babies- some jumpstarted careers-even a few LDS missions served- I'd say we've all hit the ground running since that day of May 27, 2005.
