Epic First Day Memoir

Confidence is Key

I had already made it through waking up a good 5 hours earlier then I had the last three months and survived the ceremonial, yearly snapshot before going to the bus stop. But as the bus pulled up to the school, those past annoyances now seemed like a walk in the park.
I slowly stepped off the school bus, one step at a time, attempting not to have my entrance into high school be forever remembered as falling flat on my face. As shaky as I was I somehow managed to make the tip of my flip flop connect with the cracks in the cement just in time. Not a familiar face in sight, I followed the crowd hoping I would soon end up inside the massive structure in front of me, they call a school. Trying to look confident, I walked as tall as I could, shoulders back, nose a little stuck in the air. Who knows, maybe if I look like I’ve done this a hundred times before people will believe it? No such luck. As soon as I managed to maneuver my way through all the towering upperclassmen and excessive amount of “PDA’s” (public displays of affection) I came to the main intersection of the school hallways. It was like California traffic in the middle of rush hour. So sure, I could handle finding my locker on orientation day but having thousands of kids squirming around me brought a whole other element to walking around these huge hallways. I was pretty sure I would need a navigation system just to make it to locker 1239 before first hour was over.
Attempting to find my locker I just started walking. Everywhere I looked there was an unfamiliar face; one after another I was amazed with how many people I didn’t know even existed. The hectic halls were like an oversized pinball machine. I was the tiny, white ball with no control of where I was headed next. It was an intense game and the intimidating upperclassmen were the levers, shooting me up, down, back and forth wherever they may choose.
By this point I had totally forgotten about trying to look cool. I might as well have taped a sign to my forehead saying, FRESHMAN because at this point anyone with a brain could tell. Whether it was seeing the same kids sitting on the benches for the third time because I had walked around the circle in search of my locker that many times, or taking out my school handbook to look at the map inside of it, I knew I had reached rock bottom. I had embarrassed myself enough for one day, so instead I proudly whipped out my schedule to hold in my free hand with my school map in the other, and proudly strutted all the way to first hour, just in time to slide into a seat up front, catch my breath, and the bell to ring.