I envied Marco, sort of. He was sure about who he wanted, or at least what gender he wanted. It was all boys for him, baby. And I liked boys, too. But I liked girls, sometimes. I liked Alex. Then I thought that Alex and me were just too different. Our backgrounds were too different, our morals, our standards. In high school that kind of stuff doesn't matter so much, can make it tantalizing and exciting, and believe me, hon, she was all those things. Then you get out of high school and things that seemed exciting start to seem wrong, and things that seemed cool start to seem over, and you don't know where you are. At least I didn't. Don't.
Banting. It had all seemed so simple, once. I'd get a business degree from the best school in Canada, from the Harvard of the north, as they say. Then I'd be successful beyond anyone's wildest dreams, except mine. I'd already dreamed it all. But I didn't dream about the pressure of the classes and the course load and missing my friends and being confused over Alex and being in love with her and missing everybody, all my little honeybees.
At least Marco never questioned things at this stage of the game. He knew where he was. He was gay, he loved my brother, he was going to college and living with Ellie and Dylan. And where was I? My girlfriend was a stripper and I was living in a burned down dorm room at a college I was flunking out of.
My clothes smelled like smoke. It was the smell of failure. I wasn't hacking it at this college, me, Paige Micalchuk. I had effortlessly ruled Degrassi, got awesome grades in all of my classes. Sure, working at The Dot hadn't worked out too well but the movie theater was just fine.
Was The Dot thing a warning? Maybe it pointed out that I couldn't quite juggle responsibilities, I didn't have the timing down, I didn't see something that was essential. I mean, Spin could do it. Spin worked at The Dot for years and he did it well. Confused, clueless, flunking English again Spinner. And I couldn't hack it. Like I couldn't hack Banting. Or Alex.
I was thinking that maybe the person I thought I was, the together, smart, successful Banting girl was just an illusion. Just a delusion. Was the real me something less? Something different? Did things not come as easily to me as I had thought? My confidence was maybe out of proportion to my performance. So if I wasn't the girl I'd always thought I was what sort of woman would I be?
Is it so black and white? If I apply myself at school maybe I'd do okay. But that sort of applying myself would be new, since it came so easily in high school. And if I try to get Alex to see what it is I see in her, if I could get her to change her ways…then maybe it wouldn't hurt so much to be with her. But there I go trying to change everyone and everything, including myself. Maybe Banting isn't for me. I mean, gee, hon, I'm not so used to choices.
Choices. What choices do high school kids have? There aren't many. Go to this school and take these classes. Sports. You could do sports or clubs, hang out with your friends. But the big choices, where to live and what to do, those are out of your hands.
Still, I could envy everybody else. Marco for being certain in his sexual identity. Spinner for still being in high school and for being better at certain things than I was. Maybe Spinner didn't have the illusions I did, the rubber tree plant high hopes. And when you don't have those you don't have as much room for disappointment.