Goodbye High School

Today I finished dismantling my life, and fitting it into little packages, ready to be shipped away. One bolt, one board, one relationship at a time I have turned everything I know into something that could be taken with me. Everyone I know has found a place in my heart (surprising, yes) and memories of them will live on inside of me for as long as I have the ability to reminisce. Some have taken a bigger spot, some have taken a smaller one, but there is room for everyone.

I still remember my first day of high school: grade 9, semester 2. Question: “Artem Kaznatcheev?” answer: “Here” followed by a wave of heads turning to see me. Yes, I was really a person, not just a cleric error that put a random name on five attendance sheets in semester one. I was a real person, and I was back from Russia. Back then I still had short hair and the naïve optimism of a self-centered Russian. After: I grew my hair, met some friends, fell in love, broke my heart and was at the end of my wits by grade eleven. The band I tried to form never got anywhere, since Lynden left Saskatoon, which is okay, since that leaves one less person I have to say goodbye to right now.

Sadly, I must say goodbye, as much as I hate to do it. There is no avoiding it; there is no procrastinating until it seizes to exist. I am an adult now, and I have to say goodbye. Some people will be closer than others in University (I’m looking at you Yunjun), some will be farther away. Still, I will remember everybody.

I have traveled all my life, leaving many behind, I have grown accustomed to inconsistence… change. Today is the first time that saying goodbye actually hurt. However, I am all packed and ready to go. I guess I will include two poems, because I feel like it, and I once thought they were good. (Posted in order of being written)

- - - - -

Grade 12

No matter how agog you objurgate

You’ll not silence the cheerful knell of times

But with mal spirit you can desecrate

The youth within as your adulthood chimes

Yet, you can’t abscond your obligation

To go from child to man and back again

For you’ll always need shards of your creation

As the effulgence of life begins to drain

And no matter how stoic your aberration

You will not find true meaning in your age

As your mind fumbles graduation

You’ll see both pain and joy in every page

The years engraved like marble silhouette

The question lingers: “Am I grown up, yet?”

Re-Thought

My thoughts are wandering. Like beggar’s feet

they take me to the slums. Like beggar’s hands,

past memories reproach until they meet,

rub close for warmth and reprimands.

Repent, regret, rebuff. My retrospect,

like beggar’s mind, it elevates me past

my proper place. But I cannot reject,

upon review, the thoughts my mind amassed.

My wits still follow me. Like beggar’s eye

they judge and plea. With time, like beggar’s word

they beckon me, to listen to them cry

about how past events will be recurred.

But just like beggars on the edge of light

my thoughts can be hidden out of sight

Congratulations, it’s a beautiful tomorrow

When I set foot inside these halls, gained entry

with my books, my hopes; protruding from in-

side the bag I bore since Elementary;

Back then I did not think that deep within

I brought my fears and not just all my grins.

A fear of life, a fear of death, some fears

of fear itself and of the deadly sins

that could devour me throughout four years

Now that I graduate, I know more ways

with which to paint the things I feared at dawn.

And still I bear that same old sack. A daze,

it’s empty: the books are gone, hopes moved on.

But all my fears were purged as well and in-

stead of them I’ll birth tomorrow without sin.

- - - - -

Goodbye to anyone I did not have a chance to say goodbye in person. Have a great summer everybody!

Not Growing Up

Today, I was talking to my mom on the phone. She kept going on about how I will have to leave Saskatoon as soon as grade 12 is over, and that I need to grow up and be a man. I always wanted to grow up and be an adult when I was a kid, but now that I am here at the borderline... I really do not know if I want to be an adult. I understand the importance of responsibility and I understand I have to grow up sometime. But I also see merit in the light heartedness of childhood and see the potential to delay adulthood. Many of my actions constitute me as being an adult; some make me more of an adult than many of my peers. Many actions, though, still keep me in a state of childhood. I do not want to take on the responsibility and consequences of being an adult. Right now, I am living as a non-existent person, because I have forgotten to renew my papers. My passport is expired and my license needs renewing, I have assignment deadlines drawling up on me from all around, but I still (completely intentionally) put off working for things like this blog, conversations with friends, “hormones” as Mrs. James would say and Counter Strike. I have the ability to whip myself into adulthood but I can not justify doing so myself. I think I am clinging to the parts of childhood I might have lost when I was younger and doing my best to stretch out what I have of my youth. Our lives fly past our lives at a constantly increasing rate. I am stuck in a dilemma between clinging on to what is left and setting myself up for the future. I think this is as good a time as any to whip out my notebook of musings and post a childish excuse for a poem:

Grade 12

No matter how agog you objurgate
You’ll not silence the cheerful knell of times
But with mal spirit you can desecrate
The kid within as your adulthood chimes
Yet, you can’t abscond your obligation
To go from child to man and back again
For you’ll always need shards of your creation
As the effulgence of life begins to drain

And no matter how stoic your aberration
You’ll confuse yourself about your age
As your mind fumbles graduation
You’ll see both pain and joy in every page
The years engraved like marble silhouette
The question lingers: “are we grown ups, yet?”

Parts of our lives are forcing us to grow up but I am just avoiding letting them control me. I am stuck in limbo between childhood and adulthood. I am ready to live alone and function as an individual, I am ready to leave my parents, but I am not ready to understand and appreciate all the responsibilities involved with it.