Aston, PA – A Pattern Among Static
If static is noise, adolescence is dominated by noise so profoundly loud that it drowns out your vision, your voice and your sense of personhood. Being young and confused is akin to being wrung out and hosed with calls for decision that hit like icicles on chilly, numbed skin. When you’re a teenager, you can either ignore the static or get swallowed by the warbling void of expectation – nothing seems to correlate, but young brains struggle to see patterns amongst it.
My time in high school was covered in that confusion. I couldn’t figure out who I was, what I was doing in Aston and why I couldn’t have been born in a much different time. My hobbies, passions and interests didn’t align with those of the world around me, and I felt more akin to just one of the thousands of specs that dance on tired televisions. In my time there, I was isolated and lonely, cordoned off by others to be irreverent, desperate and nerdy.
The tragedy of adolescence is that, for all intents and purposes, every teen is convinced that they’re unique in their confusion – but it takes until well into adulthood to realize that the people we hated were perhaps the only people we could find solace in.
Between having the majority of my friends thousands of miles away and having spent most of my childhood staring into the unforgiving fluorescent glow of a computer monitor, I didn’t have a lot to share with other people. I felt like a fountain of enthusiasm, dampened by oppressive disinterest; the last man standing in a room that nobody entered.
It was that pots-and-pans thumping of listlessness that kept me pushed down, and I owe being hoisted out of it to three teachers: Mr. Mal, my 6th grade math teacher; Mr. P, an eager, nerdy teacher whom I discussed video games with; and Mr. Morris, a soft-spoken nerd with whom I had an uncanny ability to relate to.
It was remarkably easy to talk to Morris. It was the first adult I had spoken to since middle school who didn’t scoff when I spoke about Star Wars and whom felt remarkably connected to the twin-language-level humor shared between myself and my best friend. As awkward as I was, Morris was a clean-cut, broad-standing, confident mirage of what I could look like – and it was empowering.
Then, I was keen on playing under-the-radar, subversive practical jokes on my teachers. For instance, when I would print papers out, I would add the text ‘Communism is the answer! Hail the USSR!’ in the lightest grey that would print in the footers of each page, then re-feed it into the printer and print my actual paper on it. I did this to Morris, and he returned my paper with the phrase “You’re such a commie” written on the bottom. I was pretty impressed.
Mr. Morris, in his unwavering art-house stoic tone of voice, inspired me to write, to draw, to laugh and to live for the first time in my high school career. I had felt appreciated on a human level, rather than that of a subordinate. The fact that I liked comics, retro games, barely combed my hair and had a penchant for ironic t-shirts didn’t matter – they were points of jolly discussion.
I can’t help but thank Mr. Morris for extending his hand to me and for seeing me not as a student, but as the lonely kid that was just looking for another nerd to relate to. Who I am now is, at best, part-way an emulation of the kindness and poise that this teacher extended onto me.
So, thank you.
