High School

MAY 23, 2020

I had to get high every day in order to cope with high school and my parents. I smoked a lot of weed to keep my inner wild child from losing her mind.

All I really wanted was to be seen and supported. My parents could not relate to me; I questioned authority, I didn’t go with the flow, I was a rebel, I ran barefoot in tight bell bottoms and a halter top, I was a wild teenager who defied them with my “fresh mouth”.  I started most fights at the dinner table, the worst possible time of day for winning. It was my first time being a teenage daughter and I didn’t have a single “how to get along with your parents” book on my shelves. 

Every day at high school felt like a personal insult to my intelligence.   I still remember a spelling test given by Mr. Ash. “Spell Tentative…Tentative, the word that comes after Nine-tative.” And then he laughed too hard at his own bad joke. I’d been reading and writing since I was four years old. This was a baby class. Insulting. And I felt suddenly trapped.  My heart would race and I had to escape.

Taking the bathroom hall-pass I left the classroom and headed straight to the back of the school yard towards my escape route.  My usual way out was quickly climbing the full height chain-link fence. As my bell bottoms hit the ground to freedom, I heard the whoop-whoop of a siren and our school Narcs pulled alongside me.  I was busted!

They told me to get in the back of their narc car and they had to take me back into school and call my parents. If WTF had existed I would have said it to them—WTF? Call my parents? I’m a grown 16-year-old!

Instead, every thought I had was geared towards avoiding getting into that car. So, I did what every wild teenager does when she is trapped…lies. First, I burst into tears. Next, I begged them, “Please don’t make me get in the car. It’s too embarrassing. I promise I will meet you at the front of the school.  You can even take my purse. Please I begged, please don’t make me ride in the car. I promise I will meet you there”.

It worked!  They did not take my purse, but instead they followed slowly alongside me as I walked head down, long hair swinging over as much of my face as possible; they still hadn’t taken my name.  I walked my fastest down Canfield Ave towards the school.  Satisfied that I was keeping my promise, they sped up a bit and drove ahead. As soon as I saw their car turn right I turned around and ran my ass off the four blocks home.

My parents were at work so the house was empty. I went inside, locked all doors. I closed all the blinds. No lights on. I laid on my bed breathing hard and listening to my crazy racing heart. But I didn’t get caught and I didn’t get busted. Being wild paid off.

I rarely was able to stay in school for more than a week at a time. I’d ditch whole days, and then some days I’d ditch only certain classes.  Writing my own elaborate absence notes and forging my mother’s signature got years of my absences excused.

Until my excuses got too elaborate for my own good. Most of my excuses were routine. Cramps. A cold. Or a 3-day fever. Migraine headaches could go 4 days. But then my last forged note said I was absent due to strep throat and mono. I had to come up with something big to cover 14+ days out of school.

When she read my absence excuse note, the attendance office lady said I had to get a doctor’s note to bring in to clear me from strep/mono. They were such a pain in the ass. Where was I supposed to get a doctor’s note? We belonged to Kaiser. You couldn’t even get a doctor let alone a note. And even if I had a great Kaiser doctor who loved note writing, what I didn’t have was strep throat or mono.

By later that week I was called out of class into the girl’s VP office. This time I was both trapped and busted! As I walked in I could see MY mother-bear sitting there with a large stack of absence notes stapled to attendance records and she was opening them one by one, writing FORGED in green marker on every note that I had forged.

But much to the credit of MY mother bear, as she was opening these notes and writing forged across them, she was also scolding the girls VP saying “if my daughter felt engaged by her teachers, she wouldn’t feel the need to leave school all the time.” Grrrrrrr!  My normally calm and kind mama bear was pissed and she was taking it out on the school. I couldn’t believe my ears!

That jab resulted in them hatching a plan for me to go on work experience and from that time on I had a 4/4 schedule. Meaning I was still trapped at school for four hours a day, and then I got work credit and could go to my job for four hours a day. I loved working; I worked at a clothing store and the creative independent animal in me was so nurtured working there. Even with the 4/4 schedule, I still had to get loaded every single day of my life to cope with the insufferable atmosphere of high school. And to take the edge off the constant tension in my household. 

Every day on my walk to school, I smoked some pot. Except on days when our first period elective was bowling, or ice skating.  Then it was pot and Quaaludes. It was the only way to take the edge off my rage and to survive. Otherwise the wild animal in me might have done some irreversible damage. 

It was horrible not to feel seen by most of the adults in my life.  I felt invisible to my parents, and to my teachers.  Since graduation was approaching, and while I had this Invisible super power, I decided to get my records out of the attendance office. I felt the school didn’t need this evidence against me. I felt just the opposite, that I should have it as evidence against THEM.

I was so brazen, I just walked into the office one morning as if I worked there, and pulled my brown records file out of the file drawers, took all my notes, slips and report cards, and dumped the entire contents into my purse. Put my empty file back. Shut the drawer. And then simply walked out. I still have these notes in a Robinson’s gift box. Elegantly stored for 45 years.

They were part of a lecture series when my kids started high school.  Known as “If you don’t want to go to school, you need to tell me and I’ll call the office and have you excused”. The lecture began, “You two are not to become forgers. And I will be a moderately cool mom but if you take advantage of my absence excuse policy, I will revoke my offer”. This box of forged notes is somehow an important part of my childhood; they represented a pivotal moment, when my mama-bear taught me that you do not shame your child in public, you protect and support them.

And then maybe you punish them in private at home. I don’t really remember getting punished, I’m just wondering if my mom kept the whole thing quiet from my dad. The same way she left our shopping bags in her trunk, as my occasional ally. Maybe she was starting to see me for the very first time. 

In June of 1975 I managed to graduate high school with my class despite missing more than a third of all the school days for three years. Our class was so large that graduation was held at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion. In that tunnel under Pauley Pavilion, while lining up with my classmates, I took a Quaalude along with hits from a joint that was being passed around. The atmosphere was excitement and also melancholy for all the goodbyes being said between friends. 

I was indifferent to graduating. I was emotionally indifferent to almost everything - it was the only way for me to cope.  I have a handful of photos from that day.  Me wearing a cheesy powder blue cap and gown and goofing outside of my parent’s house, with some of my friends.

Later that night, I experienced a very distinct physical feeling. I felt physically lighter, and I could breathe. My lungs relaxed.  My stomach unclenched.  The burden that I had carried for those three years of high school were lifted off of my shoulders. I think I felt HOPE for the first time in three years. Something huge had shifted and I was free.

I didn’t know it then, but that day in the tunnel was the last day I ever did drugs. I just never felt the urge or the need again. I was so fortunate.

I was also very lucky for so much beautiful reconciliation and repair with my mom once high school was done and I moved out. We both grew up. She finally understood and validated my experience. She made space to hold what I shared. We grew close. My wild inner child was finally soothed and my rage was replaced by love. 

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