Surviving High School (in the suburbs)

"Well, I know it isn't easy to be an adolescent
Patience is a virtue that just keeps you strong within
High school in a small town, man, could give you bumps
and bruises
The kind that could take years to heal
or even understand." -- Kevin Connolly, Marshvegas

I grew up in Toms River, New Jersey, a seaside town just off the shore. I lived there from ages 13 to 22. During my time in Toms River, I enjoyed my experience; I enjoyed the friends I had. My real friends were often the same souls that traveled with me in my church youth group, but these friends came later in my high school travels.

I saw myself as being popular, as being well known by many in my school. And though this was true to an extent, I was not in the "in" crowd. Did I believe I was a part of this group during this time? Perhaps, but I think I knew the truth deep down . I didn't fit in; my tan was too dark for understanding. It was not a summer bronze. It was centuries old. The darkness you accumalate from night, dust, and heat.

I went to a high school that had approximately 2000 students, spread throughout four grades. I was one of eight black students in the entire school. When I tell students or adults about this inequity of racial percentages I often get "oohs" and "aahs", but it really did not phase me very much . . . on the surface. My parents, (my mother more so than my father), raised me to see people as being people, good and bad, and all short of perfection. Yet, to say that I didn't take notice by the way I was treated by certain students, would be to say something false. Of course, there were students who saw my color way before they saw me. The majority? I don't know. During my time in high school, I didn't take much notice. I allowed myself to believe that most people were raised as I was raised to believe. Naturally, I lived in fantastical world, but how could I not? My teammates and others seemed to genuinely like me, while I was in school. Now, grant it, I wasn't invited to the parties, but I wasn't really interested in going to the parties.

Still, I would be willfully ignorant not to acknowledge the ways that I was made to feel different. In my freshman year (age 14), I kissed my first girl, T.R. She was a good kisser, and I had a strong crush on her early on in my young high school days. My friend Shawn set us up one night during a football game. That's the story I want to remember.

What I remember from "The Kissing of T" was that she was concerned about kissing someone black, and Shawn had to comfort her by telling her that I would be able to kiss as well as a white guy. What was she afraid of? Out of all the things I remember about my first kiss, her apprehension is what I remember best.

I will start off this next memory by saying, Beautiful Girl, I am sorry.

In my sophomore year, before my radical spiritual/religious transformation, there was this beautiful girl named ** who had a crush on me. She was a really cute, black girl who I saw as a threat to my integration into this white system of Toms River. ** and I would make the "perfect" couple . . . because we were both black. This was the pervasive thought amongst some of my "friends" who wanted me to stay clear of the white girls and date my own "kind." I've never really been good at following rules: my anarchistic thoughts are more suitable for chaos.

One night, at a football game, (are we seeing a theme here?), some of my friends wanted me to take ** into the woods and "use" her sexually because she was drunk and, according to them, "easy". I never did follow up on their recommendation, because my conscience was too shaped, in certain matters, even in my wild days, but more importantly, I chose not to pursue ** because it was what all my white friends thought I SHOULD do. In fact, the Monday following this football game, my friend Paul informed me that he and his mother had a discussion about me over the weekend. His mother told him that she thought ** and I should be a couple because it wasn't right for me to go out with a girl who is white. Paul had the audacity to tell me this.

The verbal lashing that I gave Paul that day was a build up of this underlying attitude I felt from others. Paul didn't deserve all I said, but I didn't know how to process all I was feeling at the time. It was building, and I wasn't acknowledging all that was happening.

** really liked me, but for every attempt of her trying to show me affection and kindness, I hurt her. I was cruel. I used her as a washed away game. I wanted to prove to everyone that I did not have to be with someone who was black; I wanted to show everyone that I was just as GOOD as a white guy. ** was my whipping post, my anger, my frustration at all those who wanted me to feel less than.

By the time I came to my senses the next year, she was gone, no longer attracted to me. I had hurt her enough to scar her. I heard sad news about her after I graduated, and I wonder if some of the emotional scars I placed upon her, contributed to her seeing herself less beautiful than she was. ** was and is stunning, a truely beautiful woman.

I can only say, "I'm sorry ** for mistreating you. I'm sorry for making you walk away feeling a little less than before we met. I'm sorry that I never allowed myself to be vulnerable with you. I'm sorry to fulfill the prophetic words: 'Youth is wasted on the young.'"

Years after I graduated high school, I started to believe that I fabricated my buried discontent in high school; things were not as bad as I had allowed them to grow in my brain. Then along came my high school renunion. It was a memorable experience. There were two incidents that stood apart from the rest.

I was interrupted from giving my welcome address to my classmates because J. O. needed to tell everyone that I actually graduated with the class and I wasn't the butler. Then later, Paul C. congratulated me for being married to Tessin, at the time, because she was white. If I remember correctly, the direct quote was: "Good job! We knew you wouldn't disappoint us; we knew you'd always go for the best."

What more can I say, my friends. I survived, but I still wince when I smell the fresh cut grass of football fields.

"Well, there's something about the suburbs
that will get you if you stay too long
Something about a small town
and how it keeps you in
Though every place is different,
and every place is just the same
and tension is alive and well
no matter where you live."
Kevin Connolly