My Lesson Learned

by LS

Here I was, back at Claremont in the 8th grade. I had just transferred back to Claremont from a school in San Lorenzo. After coming back from that school, I appreciated Claremont a whole lot more! I had missed the yelling and fighting, and the roasting, but most of all I’d missed my friends.

Back in the 7th grade, I didn’t really appreciate anything. I wasn’t really grateful… I didn’t realize how much I had. Back then, my friends and I would make jokes and just laugh all the time. We would always hang out at the same place at lunch and talk about people. Not in a completely bad way but - well - we didn’t really care, as long as it was funny.

We always had insiders, laughs that you couldn’t understand unless you were in on the joke; people thought we were crazy because all we did was laugh for apparently no reason. All we had to do was look at each other and we would all bust out laughing. We would get high off laughter… I think you get the point.

I can remember the conversation that one of my friends and I had in class one day about wanting to leave Claremont.

“Are you going here next year?” asked my friend, KH.
“ I don’t know, I might not,” I responded.
“Me neither… this school is so… I don’t know,” she broke off. I could tell that whatever she was going to say wasn’t anything positive.
“Yeah, I need to get out of here!”
“I can’t take this school anymore,” she agreed.
“I might go to a school by my house,” I remembered.
“I know, me too! If you see how close that school is to my house you would think I’m stupid for coming here,” she laughed.
“When I first met you, I thought you were stupid,” I joked.
“ Shut up, dang!” she said, but she wasn’t really angry. It was a weird conversation between the two of us.

I didn’t really understand what we ‘couldn’t take anymore.’
Was it the good times we had? Or maybe it was the times when we would laugh so hard we couldn’t breathe and our stomach would hurt?

I think we took things for granted. A couple of months later, after going to our new schools for 8th grade, the only way we could keep in touch was the phone. We didn’t see each other every day anymore; we didn’t see each other at all. We would talk about how much we missed Claremont, and how much we hated the schools that we went to now.

I think I’m the one who missed it the most; I went into a deep depression for about four months. I never thought that this school I couldn’t stand at one point would be the thing that I yearned for most.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that you shouldn’t take things for granted, and be grateful for who and what you have, and how good you have it. Just remember: before you decide you have nothing at all, and no matter how crappy you think your school or friends are, just remember: it could be worse.

Being back at Claremont is a new start for me, I guess. I may not have all the same friends I used to have but I’ve made weird, funny, great new ones. You may think I’m crazy when I say that I’m actually very grateful to be walking among the halls of Claremont Middle School, and I know I’m going to miss everyone when I graduate! I hope I leave a footprint behind…