It's my partner & I's four year anniversary today! I figured I'd share a little bit about us, especially since it's been over a month since I last posted (whoops!).
We got together at the end of my junior year of high school. It had been a relatively rough year for me, and I was very ready for it to be over with. I had anatomy at the end of the day one day and a study hall another. The former of those was taught by a hispanic lady who was ready to be retired and didn't care that much about us leaving a bit early, especially towards the end of the year. The latter of those was run by my old band director, who knew me well enough to trust me to go to other places in the building. On top of that, I had what I called my "get out of jail free" pass, something I did genuinely need as part of my 504 plan in case I had a PTSD episode. So I did a little bit of roaming. Not as much as I did my senior year, but that's not the focus right now.
Because I have it pulled up right now, for future reference, and because it's an excuse to put something that isn't just a block of text in my blog, this was my schedule my junior year:
| A/B | Class |
| A1 | Economics |
| A2 | Photography I |
| A3 | AP Statistics* |
| A4 | Study Hall |
| B1 | AP US History |
| B2 | Graphic Arts II |
| B3 | IB English |
| B4 | Anatomy |
*The table isn't accurate for most of the school year. Within about a month, I dropped that AP Stats class. It was a little late, so they didn't really know where to put me and just gave me a free block at the end of the day, moving my study hall up to A3. Free blocks were mostly meant for seniors who had already fulfilled most of their requirements and wouldn't benefit from taking random bullshit classes and/or had jobs to go to. They could either be at the beginning of the day or the end. I was special getting a free block my junior year. To be fair, I had already fulfilled plenty of my graduation requirements. It would look more like this on A days:
| A1 | Economics |
| A2 | Photography I |
| A3 | Study Hall |
| A4 | Jack Squat! |
I visited my friend in her art class at the end of the day on A days. I think it was a fourth block thing, because sometimes I wouldn't go at all in favor of just going home early. She was the one who convinced me to do it most of the time, telling me whether or not she'd be busy on a given day in class. Her IB art class was her A4. She'd made some arrangement with her study block teacher to let her check in with the study hall then head right back to work on her portfolio.
The latter half of my freshman year and the entirety of my sophomore year were spent online due to the pandemic. Some of my friends went back to school for in-person sophomore year, but I stayed home. My mom is immunocomprimised, and it felt like the right thing to do at the time. Meanwhile, my friend made friends with another person in her sophomore art class, who had just become a freshman and was apparently named Noodle. Over the phone during that time, my friend would talk about Noodle on occassion, telling me how much we'd get along.
So when I came back junior year, my friend had a friend she did art with during their study block/her actual art class. Now that I was there in person, I could meet whoever the fuck this Noodle was.
I was pretty excited about it. As someone who doesn't have too many friends, it's exciting to get to meet more potential candidates that have already gone through the friendship TSA line and passed their bag inspection. And basing on their name alone, as someone who fucking loves pasta, I had a feeling we would get along splendidly.
I had no idea that we'd end up planning our lives together.
Hell, I'd gone into the end of 2021 having freshly broken up with my then-boyfriend of about 3 years, give or take. I had no idea I'd only spend half a year without a partner.
The funny part is that I recognized them when we were introduced. The funnier part is that I didn't recognize them, but their jacket. We had been friends in middle school for a brief period of time (my 8th grade year, their 7th). I would come into our GT (gifted & talented) classroom to use our teacher's microwave for my lunch. I would talk with some of the people I knew in that period. I made friends with them then, since they were in that class and easy to spot thanks to their bright yellow and black hufflepuff jacket. In retrospect, they've told me that I was annoying because they were stressed about getting stuff done in class only for me to show up and bother them. In my defense, they weren't the reason I came to that classroom- I used the microwave when applicable and I generally wasn't a fan of how loud and bright the cafeteria was.
So just as I could pick them out of a crowd in the halls by the lockers, I saw them and I knew them and it all felt so ironic.
I don't think they recognized me. Not as immediately as I did them, anyhow. And I couldn't have had any idea it was them when my friend talked about them around me, because they'd changed their name since I met them and I didn't remember their old one anyway; I just remembered Noodle as the "person with the hufflepuff jacket" in my head. Relatively soon I learned that they had memory problems, so I don't blame them for not recognizing me right away.
Just as they were annoyed at my presence back in middle school, they were annoyed at my presence junior year, too. Except this time, they were bothered by my presence because I was already friends with our mutual friend for much longer and was, by extension, usurping their friend time by being there. It did not help that they were "fucking lonely" (their words, not mine).
But we got to talking and, sure enough, my friend was right on the money about us getting along. We shared a hyperfixation at the time, and I learned pretty quickly that they were actually kind of popular on TikTok for cosplaying a character from that fandom. It just so happened that I was incredibly down bad for said character (I also had several alters of that character. I don't think I've ever even mentioned my personality disorder here. LOL)
They liked my art and paid me $20 to draw their character. I later learned, both by context clues and by their direct admission, that it was an excuse to get into my DMs. I have no idea what I spent that money on but I'm sure it was either gas or something stupid.
Noodle is a year younger than me, which led to me both being on the receiving end of "haha you're being groomed" as well as being the "groomer" (my EX was more than a year older than I was and there were 6 months where I was 16 and he was 18). Thankfully, our birthdays are literally only 2 weeks apart, so there was only 2 weeks of awkwardness with that. They unfortunately coincided with the vacation we took on our own to the beach, so it was mildly exacerbated on that front. But they were the one driving, so maybe they groomed me.
Jokes aside, cut to junior prom. Noodle's a sophomore; Can't go to prom, and I already had made plans back in like... December or something to go with my friend group (which did include friend who "introduced" me to Noodle). I wasn't super close with any of them except for the one, but having a prom group is better than having nobody at all.
Except for the fact that, after a while, I blossomed into a wallflower, sat alone at a table and watched everyone dance. I was tired, but I felt lonely, even surrounded by friends and people who cared about me enough to swing by my table and ask if I was alright (I don't remember who, I was too distracted by my thoughts to fully indulge in that moderately awkward exchange).
And while I blame some of it on social exhaustion, mixed with major depressive disorder that only drains my energy more, I realized that the thing that was bothering me most was that they weren't there.
So I told them about it. I took out my phone and I texted them and told them I wished they were here.
I wish it was a little more romantic than it was in actuality. I think we literally said "so we're dating now?" or something very similar. In all fairness, that's really on brand for us.
I think I'm going to leave it here for tonight. We just discussed their schedule that year, or at least as much as we could piece together/remember. I'm going to put that in a little table, too. We don't remember who had the study block last period and who had the art block last period between them and our friend, but we're fairly sure they had the art block. IDK.
We are both going to bed now. Happy Anniversary, baba!!! I love you!!!
PS: that table that doesn't show up in my site as a table but i swear its programmed to be one idk what happened:
| A/B | Class |
| A1 | Precalc |
| A2 | Government |
| A3 | Art (?) |
| A4 | Study Hall (?) |
| B1 | Chemistry |
| B2 | Pre-IB English |
| B3 | German |
| B4 | Gym |