While You Were Out
I always hated taking days off school.
Not for any practical reason like missing my friends or thinking it would be rough to catch up, certainly not because I minded being sick (legit verifiable germs are a great way to finagle extra attention and Jell-O) and heaven help those ignorant bastards who thought being away from school was BORING (Why? How?) But eventually -- you heal, you mend, you regain strength, and then, there's no reason to stay out anymore.
Because THAT was the real trouble with being absent: it's temporary.
And, in my paranoid and self-centered young mind, that first day back was sheer torture. I imagined all sorts of heady expectations that went along with disappearing and reappearing once again. Were you expected to account for all your lost time? To provide an inventory of your symptoms? Act apologetic for major grade school traumas missed? Recap what happened on every soap opera and daytime court show you greedily packed in -- and if you were healthy enough to watch TV, shouldn't you feel guilty for missing class? What if they switched seats while you were out? What if something funny happened that would become the "you had to be there" moment for the next three months?
Or what if no one had ever noticed you were gone? Well, then - to call attention to yourself would just be embarassing. Pleading. Sycophantic. Did people want to hear about your day away, were they glad for the time you were away, or were you a nonentity?
Sometimes, the anxiety of coming back actually made me sick -- which bought me another day of 7-Up and TV trays and popsicles and Judge Wapner -- and made the going back even scarier. Would more days missed require a more fantastic excuse? Some kind of strange tropical illness contracted through my charitable work with the pygmies...or at least, my sister's Brownie Troop? Or better just to slide back into my desk, nod at all the teacher said (not that hard, after all), and hope to rejoin the class already in progress, like my absence was nothing more than a bulletin from the emergency broadcast system?
Two days, four days, a whole week...the longer you're out, the worse it gets.
But three years? That's not the kind of absence you can explain away with a slight cold, or food poisoning, or even the most generic catch-all teen disease known to man: mono.
Three years means your family joined the witness protection program, or moved back to the Old Country, or Dad got transferred to another branch, or you became a teen mother addict runaway turned private dancer.
To come back three years later would just be...weird. Confusing. Didn't someone who looked a little like you used to go here? Remember that joke we had that time? No, no - I guess you wouldn't. Do you still like that song? Oh - no, I don't either. Could you even rejoin your class after three years of homeschool equivalent, or did jumping out of line earn you a whole new place? And could you even come back, after all, or would you have to go to some alternate reality continuation night school for lost causes?
Clearly, it's easier - safer - more reasonable than to have never been absent at all. Because coming back with all the weight of what ifs felt scarier than starting fresh in the first place.
I've written more, imagined more, pondered more, logged on more, put fingers to keyboard more in the last 2 1/2 years than the static placeholder of my last entry could possibly ever indicate. But I hate being absent -- and the longer I was away, the scarier it got.
Who cares? Who remembers? Granted, most of my absences were lengthy, but this one was epic. What kind of earth-shattering masterpiece would justify disturbing the calm of my never-updated page?
An apology?
Busy, yes. Grad School, sure. New job, indeed. Never ending stream of twentysomething mental crises, no doubt.
A valid excuse?
Bored, not a bit. Forget to write? As easily as you could forget any other appendage! Done with writing, blasphemy. Out of ideas, impossible when all you write about is yourself. Over yourself? Don't you wish!
A forwarding address?
Haven't been here, but I've been writing...
A thesis. A great one, too. A journal. Dead juicy and emo, yup. An endless string of nonsensical emails to the faithful. Not as many as you'd think, no. A book. One day!
So why come back now?
Moved back to the neighborhood? Eh, never left. Suddenly had something to say. Not so far, do I? Searching for my missing piece? Well, that's closer to the truth. Teetering on the edge of a mental crisis? Good lord almighty, not another one! Bored of the homeschool self-writing gig? Well, I'm nothing if not a verbal exhibitionist. Decided to give in to the outraged cries of nagging fans?
Dear Teacher,
Please excuse the author for absenting herself from her blog over the past three years. She was...afraid to come back.
What else is there to say?
I always hated taking days off school. Please excuse my absence. Let me slink into my desk and rejoin the class -- already in progress.
Not for any practical reason like missing my friends or thinking it would be rough to catch up, certainly not because I minded being sick (legit verifiable germs are a great way to finagle extra attention and Jell-O) and heaven help those ignorant bastards who thought being away from school was BORING (Why? How?) But eventually -- you heal, you mend, you regain strength, and then, there's no reason to stay out anymore.
Because THAT was the real trouble with being absent: it's temporary.
And, in my paranoid and self-centered young mind, that first day back was sheer torture. I imagined all sorts of heady expectations that went along with disappearing and reappearing once again. Were you expected to account for all your lost time? To provide an inventory of your symptoms? Act apologetic for major grade school traumas missed? Recap what happened on every soap opera and daytime court show you greedily packed in -- and if you were healthy enough to watch TV, shouldn't you feel guilty for missing class? What if they switched seats while you were out? What if something funny happened that would become the "you had to be there" moment for the next three months?
Or what if no one had ever noticed you were gone? Well, then - to call attention to yourself would just be embarassing. Pleading. Sycophantic. Did people want to hear about your day away, were they glad for the time you were away, or were you a nonentity?
Sometimes, the anxiety of coming back actually made me sick -- which bought me another day of 7-Up and TV trays and popsicles and Judge Wapner -- and made the going back even scarier. Would more days missed require a more fantastic excuse? Some kind of strange tropical illness contracted through my charitable work with the pygmies...or at least, my sister's Brownie Troop? Or better just to slide back into my desk, nod at all the teacher said (not that hard, after all), and hope to rejoin the class already in progress, like my absence was nothing more than a bulletin from the emergency broadcast system?
Two days, four days, a whole week...the longer you're out, the worse it gets.
But three years? That's not the kind of absence you can explain away with a slight cold, or food poisoning, or even the most generic catch-all teen disease known to man: mono.
Three years means your family joined the witness protection program, or moved back to the Old Country, or Dad got transferred to another branch, or you became a teen mother addict runaway turned private dancer.
To come back three years later would just be...weird. Confusing. Didn't someone who looked a little like you used to go here? Remember that joke we had that time? No, no - I guess you wouldn't. Do you still like that song? Oh - no, I don't either. Could you even rejoin your class after three years of homeschool equivalent, or did jumping out of line earn you a whole new place? And could you even come back, after all, or would you have to go to some alternate reality continuation night school for lost causes?
Clearly, it's easier - safer - more reasonable than to have never been absent at all. Because coming back with all the weight of what ifs felt scarier than starting fresh in the first place.
I've written more, imagined more, pondered more, logged on more, put fingers to keyboard more in the last 2 1/2 years than the static placeholder of my last entry could possibly ever indicate. But I hate being absent -- and the longer I was away, the scarier it got.
Who cares? Who remembers? Granted, most of my absences were lengthy, but this one was epic. What kind of earth-shattering masterpiece would justify disturbing the calm of my never-updated page?
An apology?
Busy, yes. Grad School, sure. New job, indeed. Never ending stream of twentysomething mental crises, no doubt.
A valid excuse?
Bored, not a bit. Forget to write? As easily as you could forget any other appendage! Done with writing, blasphemy. Out of ideas, impossible when all you write about is yourself. Over yourself? Don't you wish!
A forwarding address?
Haven't been here, but I've been writing...
A thesis. A great one, too. A journal. Dead juicy and emo, yup. An endless string of nonsensical emails to the faithful. Not as many as you'd think, no. A book. One day!
So why come back now?
Moved back to the neighborhood? Eh, never left. Suddenly had something to say. Not so far, do I? Searching for my missing piece? Well, that's closer to the truth. Teetering on the edge of a mental crisis? Good lord almighty, not another one! Bored of the homeschool self-writing gig? Well, I'm nothing if not a verbal exhibitionist. Decided to give in to the outraged cries of nagging fans?
Dear Teacher,
Please excuse the author for absenting herself from her blog over the past three years. She was...afraid to come back.
What else is there to say?
I always hated taking days off school. Please excuse my absence. Let me slink into my desk and rejoin the class -- already in progress.
posted by Tangentially Yours at
9:30 PM
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