Mm. Am tired.

Am glad to be out of school for the day and done with senior pictures forever. One down on a long list of senior obligations, none of which I care about, all of which my parents care deeply about. Which is not to say that my parents are total pains or jerks or anything, 'cause they're not, but this is their big year-long goodbye, or something, and so they tend to make a production out of these things. ...I still maintain that while we picked the "keeper" photos at the digital picture place, I should just have been sent out to the car. It would have made precious little difference. It's their money, and I wasn't about to go against them. I hate when they ask me which of a series like that I like best, because unless it's what they like, I feel like I'm going to have to put up with them always secretly thinking that my choice pales in comparison to what they picked. My mom denies this. I still don't put it past my dad.

...I mean, they seemed annoyed that I had no opinion, but bare truth be told, I surrendered any freedom of choice the minute my mom rejected the clothes I had picked out and admonished me for not being responsible enough to tell her I needed a dress--which I didn't actually want to wear--and proceeded to pick out what I was going to wear. In other words, they acted like they were going to leave everything to me, then got angry because what I picked didn't suit them, so they dressed me themselves--which would have happened either way, really. ...I love the way my mom looked at me and just shook her head, like she was just totally speechless with shame. And the running commentary on my picture smiles ("that one's...okay" "mm, that one's definitely a grimace"). And how they had no idea why I was so annoyed at the entire proceedings. ...Two of the smartest people I know, and they just don't get it. ...And, of course, they're here thinking the same about me. That I just don't get it.

I don't want to be a senior, okay? I spent ten years of my school career liking school, but now...now it just sucks. Now I'm done. I just want to get this over with so I can get away from this awful, crowded school, with its stupid crackpot principal that followed us, horror-movie style, from the junior high. Away from rules made for 3% of the population, enforced on 100%. Away from the uselessness of my entire world. Away from everything, and finally really decide for myself when projects should be done and how my own decisions should be made, instead of them just pretending I can.

I just want to do something. Something that means something. Even if everyone else thinks it's like some childish dream.

This whole senior...thing...means absolutely nothing. For the love of all fathomable decency, it's a series of pictures, and a series of dinners, and a series of dances, and a series of undeserved points at pep rallies. Why do they do this to us? Are they going to miss us that much? And if they do, why do they show it by torturing the children who have something better to do with their time than flashy dance-picture-dinner things, party things, things that emphasize everything I've never been and hope never to be?

I just want something of substance. For the love of decency, I'm seventeen years old, and I've done nothing. And that's fine for a while, but I'm tired of it now.

...But everything I ever want, I feel like I have to ask permission. And everything I really want, I don't want to ask for, 'cause it sounds like the kind of hyperdreamyeyed thing you'd get out of a beat poet. I just want to make people happy--really happy. If it means going to another country, or being poor, or never getting married...I'd do it. I'd do it.

...Or would I, when my father's voice in the back of my head tells me just to settle down and try to get somewhere in a career somewhere, try to get a house, try to get a husband and some kids?

I don't want to hurt them. But what if I want something they don't? Would I ever even ask for it, when I don't even want to hassle them further by telling them which picture I really want, or even telling them how little I care for anything they're putting me through? They'd tell me this is ridiculous, that they support anything that I do. ...They don't with how I do my assignments, how I choose to dress (and not just for pictures; for at least three years now I've gotten my dad's hints about how I should dress, and from my mom about how much she hates shopping with me). Why do they think they'd do it with anything big?

What happens when I want something important that they hate?

-Laurel