I have just finished reading the first few entries of this journal.  It sure has been a long time since I last wrote anything, and, in a way, I feel I am blasphemizing this journal by picking the story of my life back up now, so much later.  I guess better late than never again.

Catastrophic changes have occured since May 8, 1993, changes in me and my life. I hardly know where to begin.  The first is my senior year, I guess.  It came and went like jumping jack flash.  I never knew how short life was until I looked back at graduation and realized my life, as I knew it, was over.  All the years I had worked through, all the trials and tribulations I had endurred had propelled me to the end of high school.  And they were numerous. Let me recap some of the events of my last year of high school:

Band went extremely well last year.  At the Newman Classic, we took showmanship sweeps, and only one point seperated the band from grand sweeps.  Antioch again lost the pitt game, etc. etc.  I am not in a marching band this year, only concert.  LMC doesn't have a marc band.

Academically speaking, I had a good year.  I had AP Calculus and AP English, passing both AP tests with 3's.  This year, however, Pernish Kanteseria, Rachell Jepson, and especially April Brown, were all a big part of my life.  We had a study group for Calculus, every Tuesday, until complications with April's mother stopped them.  April was not well, she had a sugar disorder within her body, either too much or too little, we're not sure.  Her mother thought she knew what was wrong and wouldn't let April see a doctor or listen to him when she did.  I found myself growing close to April, but I did nothing about it then.  I was afraid-mostly because I didn't understand what I was feeling for her.  It was unlike anything I'd ever felt for any girl before. Whenever I talked to her, I felt happy, but not when I just looked at her.  She is pretty, I think, but I can't explain it.  It's as if I fell in love with her voice and mind and not the rest of her.  I couldn't see us dating, or kissing.  It was odd.  I haven't seen her, now, since graduation, and don't know if I will over Christmas break, but I'm getting ahead of myself.  One night, at a study session, we were talking about the Senior Ball.  Pernish and Rachelle had already decided to go together, earlier.
 
About Rachelle: At the beginning of the year, she was dating a man named Jeremy Kent Gover.  He was an adopted child, and, like me, very interested in writing. That is how we met and became friends-in Creative Writing.  I took it again because I had to fill a class period.  Jeremy was not such a great poet or author, his main talents and interest laid in journalism.  Well, in this class was a flag girl named April (not Brown!).  She and Jeremy became good friends, and the rest of us began to think they were having affairs with each other (April had a boyfriend).  I confronted Jeremy about it, and he denied it, earnestly, telling me thank-you, I'll try to work out the problems with Shelly. I now think he lied.  Then, however, I believed him. As time passed though, I thought he lied.  So does everyone else, including Shell.  April told us once, in confidentiality, that Rachelle had confided in her that she thought she was pregnant, something like two or three times.  Eventually, she and Jeremy, after fighting to stay together, broke up, and she and Pernosh gradually began to date one another.

Getting back to the ball, we were all discussing it and it was then that I asked April if she would go with me.  I really wanted her to, really wanted her to.  I think Rachelle might have thought I asked only because April didn't look like she would have a date, but I wanted her to go with me.  Months later, at the dance, April would thank me for going with her, nearly tearfully, saying she didn't think she would ever go to her senior ball.  Before our senior year, April had been much of a recluse, with no real friends.  I was much the same way, although I had friends in class, and had also wondered, several times, if I would have a date to my Senior Ball.  The night of the Senior Ball was the shortest in all my life.  It was also the most rewarding. I will never forget the joy I felt with April in my arms, as we danced the slow songs, or the adrenalin I felt as I made a fool of myself on the fast songs.  There were two or three conga-lines as well.  That night, though, little did I know, would be the first time I saw Joseph and April kind of together.  It had all started on the Acadmeic Decathalon's trip to Long Beach, for Model UN, they had fallen asleep with their hands together, while sitting on the train, apparently, and from all who saw, were absolutlely adorable together.

Towards the end of the year, everyone else started pairing off, getting together as couples, and one thing that hurt me more than anything I can remember was when April and Joseph Sarmiento kind of paired off.  I could barely look at them together without crying.  I never said a word, still unsure of myself and my feelings.  April retreated from me, and we never really talked with one-another.  I got the feeling she felt bad about feelings she might have had for me, and knew about the feelings I had had for her.