I remember…
the years of high school,
my short happiness,
before my despair,
followed by a newfound feeling of warmth.

I remember…
The day I met her,
The day I hooked up with Britney,
The confusion of the first week of high school,
Meeting new people.

I remember…
The rest of freshman year,
The laughter,
The friends,
The fun,
The innocence.

I remember…
The day I lost my innocence,
And the day I took hers,
Oh, how I regret that night,
How the fighting followed,
When I had heard the mournful news.

I remember sophomore year…
The self-hatred,
The attempts of self-termination,
Always hiding from those who cared,
The last days of Selma High.

I remember my new school…
Hiding from those who wanted to be friends,
Trying still to end my life,
The final days.

I remember the following year…
My Junior year,
A year to learn,
A year to be me.

I remember…
That summer,
Meeting Mathew Fleming,
Planning my final attempt,
Then just giving up on it once and for all.

I remember…
Starting the year, my senior year,
Dating for fun,
Living happily again,
Meeting new people,
Hooking up with someone,
Getting engaged.
I remember…
Receiving this assignment,
Breaking the engagment,
Realizing that it wasn’t what I wanted,
Dating again right after.
I remember…
Dating Jo-el,
Breaking up with Jo-el,
Planning to go to faire in tahoe,
This project.




My High School Years:
I have a recollection of my years in high school. I was a Freshman and Half-A-Sophomore at Selma High School. I was only half because in the middle of it I moved to El Diamante High in Visalia. At El Diamante I was a Junior and Senior. It’s funny, I remember so much, yet I can think of nothing when I go to type this.

As a freshman I was a happier individual. I had an awesome girlfriend I had just hooked up with. I had ambition. I had drive. I wanted to be the absolute best that I could be. I was able to be a part of a group, though only to a certain extent. Even then I was quiet, but not like I am now. I remember my first day of school. I had forgotten to register, so I went to school that day, with a foreign exchange student as I recall, and waited in line for hours just to register.
During that first semester, two important things happened. I met a wonderful girl named Britney, and my grandfather had died. On the first day of school I felt rather lost, on my way home I kind of took forever to get home. She had been here visiting her grandparents, we clicked that first day. Though I didn’t get the courage to ask her out until a week later. Then there’s my grandfather dying, which happened in January of 2004.
My Second semester is where my hell started. In March of 2004, on the 11th. Yes during the Christian weeks of lent. The one person who meant everything to me died. That day, right after she and I had had our only real fight, was also two days after we had lost our virginity. I had said so many horrible things that day, and back then, my words could cut to the bone. She was never emotionally strong. I believe her death had been a suicide attempt, but the driver had been drunk, so he had taken the full blame for all of it.
I hadn’t even been allowed to go to her funeral. I just sat at home and cried the only tears I had cried since I was a little tike. I had no intention of letting on that something had happened. See, no one I knew had any clue I had a girlfriend. After her death I had become particularly good at hiding my emotions from people. No one was able to tell that anything was affecting me.

I forced myself through the rest of that year. Disgusted with myself. Able to hide everything from everyone, except me. I couldn’t hide for what I had done. I slowly became suicidal. I tried everything I could think of. Nothing was quite effective enough. I was lucky a few of my friends, my closest three actually, knew how to handle the wounds. Those three, John, Alex, and Garret, were the only others who knew what had occurred.

The next year. I was still trying to die, but I had picked up a new tactic. Getting it to happen “on accident”, because it happening by suicide wasn’t working, and it was getting a little obvious. I took up jousting. Racing. Street fighting. Water Polo. To no avail. I gave up on all but racing since then.
About midway through the year I was given a chance to escape the place that reminded me so much of Britney. My mother and her new husband, Joe, wanted to move to Visalia. I had of course jumped at the chance to run. My friends were left with no clue where I had disappeared to, except the three that mean the most to me. That I made sure of.
At my new school, El Diamante, I met people from all walks of life. None of which I wanted anything to do with. I was determined to be alone. I had never been a very successful person. I made a few friends in the gaming clicks at school. Among which I met my friends Conrad Ross and Desmond Almonte. Neither of them had ever had a clue as to what happened, I think.
I found it very easy to distance myself from almost everyone else in this new school. Though the pain of my past had followed me. It’s true what they say, you can’t run from the past, and the past will come back and bite you in the ass. About as quickly as I had adapted, my depression hit me again, harder than ever before. I’m clueless as to how I had made it through without getting noticed by someone. I guess they were all to busy with their own lives to worry about someone else.
I went through that semester rather quickly, though I’m not sure why. I can’t remember anything significant happening. Scratch that. I remember finding a new game that has become a part of me like nothing since has. Dungeons and Dragons. It has helped me maintain sanity.
My Junior year was rather uneventful, save for the fact that during the second semester, Conrad Ross tried to kill himself. He eventually pulled himself back up and got back on track. Though that event seemed to have burned a change into him, like a brand that only affected his personality.

That summer, I had to do summer school. I had failed several classes the semester before.
Here is where I made plans for my last attempt at suicide. Over the summer, so when I didn’t come back to school, no one would really notice. Most all of my friends were moving or transferring schools. So it didn’t really matter to me at all. I could slip away unoticed.
I had intended to do something I had never tried. Due only to lack of opportunity. Ritual suicide(I can’t remember the name of it), out in the middle of nowhere. Then I ended up meeting a friend who became like a brother to me. Matthew Fleming. In knowing him I now knew there was someone who would have missed me. So, I couldn’t do it. He was always over at my house, so I could never really slip away. He would definitely have noticed if I hadn’t shown up at school the first day.
That summer I found something I had lost. I can’t quite put a word on it. It is the will to survive. To force myself through the years no matter what happens. My life has been changed ever since. I gave up on suicide then and there. Nevermore would I plan, or even think about performing, suicide.

Starting out the school year, I decided I should let myself date again. Elena Logan was the first one I remember dating. She was fun, hyper, and happy in her life. Though the relationship was short-lived, I learned something. Dating can be done just for fun. Live, be single, be happy.
I was now meeting lots of new people. Through Matt of course. Most were just friends that I was cool hanging out with. Though some I had dated. One name that will always stand out with me is Alisa Jo-el Arnold. Though that was second semester, which I’m leaving out of this memoir, due to the fact that it isn’t over yet.
I had become happy again. I was starting to do well in school again. Though I realized I still have a hard time connecting with people. I shielded them from the me that had lived three years before. In numerology, this seems to be represented by a missing six in my chart.
Towards the end of the semester, I’m not really sure when. I started dating a girl in Madera, Robyn Orr. Who I rather quickly fell into a lustful relationship with. By the end of 2006, actually three days before new years, I proposed to her.
In 2007, I had a month where I felt extremely happy and interested in my life. Then one
Day I was visiting my friend Jo-el at her house with Matt. There I suddenly realized my relationship with Robyn was as shallow as could be. I rather quickly became reckless. Destroying my engagement, subconsciously on purpose. I started hanging out with Jo-el and the others from my old group.
That made things worse. By superbowl weekend, I think on superbowl Sunday actually. My fiancée decided we needed a break. Monday morning at around midnight, she called it off. I had by this point realized what I had done. The screwed up choices I had made. My life seemed to be in chaos, yet through that chaos I saw an eye in a storm. Alisa Jo-el Arnold.
She had me from the day I visited her at her place. Though my ex fiancée had me by promise of word, and my word is rarely given, so I was bound to keep it. Jo-el had me by my own desire. The day following the engagement being called off all together, I asked Jo-el out. It was a Tuesday, the week of CAHSEE testing. She and some of our other friends were hanging out at starbucks. After about half an hour there, I realized I left a take home test I had over due from my english class at home. I used that as my excuss to go outside, asking here if she walk with me for a moment.
I asked her out on the way towards the sidewalk. She kissed me, bolted from my side, then as I looked back she was looking at me asking “Do you really even need to ask?” Of course my reply was some smart as comment that she smiled at, then said yes. I turned to go, walking I glanced back, just in time to see her walk right into the door at starbucks. I wanted to laugh, to run to help her, but I couldn’t let her know I was watching.
I ran home, as quick as I could. Grabbed my test, which I think was for hitchhikers guide to the galaxy.
I hauled over to the school. I got back there with I think twenty minutes to spare. It turns out Jo-el, and her close friend Glory, had waited for me out by the crappy baseball diamond, the one next to the track. On the bleachers. I stayed there for like fifteen minutes. Ended up taking a picture that still today takes me to a happy-sad moment in time. Then I got myself to the class and turned in the test, with little time to spare.
I from there sat through class after class waiting for school to end.
I’m not sure what happened the rest that day, or the day that followed. My memory of it has been to hazy. I know that she and I became very close. I spent many weekends over at her house, often times just watching movies that I never really watched. I was to distracted by her. She was so amazing then, she still is, but I’m no longer with her. I remember the day she first told me she loved me.
It was a Wednesday or Thursday. I had been at lunch waiting for her. When she got there I held her close, then kissed her. She asked me to the Sadies Hawkins dance. I said yes. Then I heard her mutter something under her breath. I wasn’t sure of what I had heard, so I kept my mouth shut on the topic. Later that day, I asked Glory online about it, she confirmed my suspicion. Jo-el had said the three words that scared me more than any other had: I love you.
Our relationship continued well until one day I had been on some medications that made me a bit off. I said some things, and I gave her a ring. After that our relationship was mostly downhill. Though it did have some highlights while the following two weeks passed. I went to a birthday dinner with her and her family. I had visited her at her house a couple times. All in all the last two weeks were awkward, but I wouldn’t give them up for anything in the world, and I mean anything.
Then the day she broke up with me. I went over to her class right after school, as I had always done. Then as she came up to me she said those words, “We need to talk.” The words no one wants to hear from someone they’re in a relationship with, ever. I of course said ok, and then told her to let me know if she ever wanted to try again. It hadn’t quite hit me yet. It didn’t until that night.
I couldn’t sleep right for weeks to come, she had suggested a way to fall asleep that had worked quite well before, but now reminds me of her, keeping me awake for hours thinking of her. Sometimes I sit up and write, just anything that comes to mind. Usually about her. About the times we shared. I even did a piece that I turned into my english class.
Days after, I had tried to move on. To find someone new to try with. Which has just added to all the chaos. I started to want to date her friend Glory. Glory had always been the one I could turn to about Jo-el. She became the one I trusted most out of the group I would hang out with. Of course it could not be. So, I find myself here alone.
Here I am. Reflecting on this project. Trying to contemplate everything I’ve just told you. Everything I’ve told myself about me for the future. Everything that I am. Everything that I could become. This is an incomplete memory. It is my memory. One that I hope will not be forgoten. By me, by those I care about, by those I mentioned in the credits on my cover page. I love you all. May this be as good for you to read as it was for me to type.