If I went back to high school now...

     I keep having nightmares about being back in high school for no apparent reason, and while those haven't sparked anything other than unnecessary stress, the I'm Not Okay (I Promise) music video has. (Or more specifically, a lot of fan art about it) Now that I can say for sure that a lot of the shit you worry about in high school doesn't matter, and now that I'm more sure of myself and who I am, here's what I'd do if my nightmares came true.

     My biggest regret BY FAR is not being fucking weirder. I started a vampire club in the months before I graduated, and it was the shit, but I should've been doing that type of stuff ages before that. We drank cherry Kool-Aid in plastic wine glasses and wore plastic fangs and did a dramatic reading of My Immortal, and it was PEAK. I would wear the fangs MORE if I went back. I'd dress up as a vampire or otherwise in costume whenever I could. On spirit days when it was expected that you'd dress up, I'd participate in more and stay more aware of when they were, because I always forgot.

     I'd tell people I have rabies. I'd be more of a freak to the jocks (not all of them, but you know the type I mean), I'd hiss at them and say weirder shit in response to their questions that sound innocent to teachers, but are followed by a glance at their grinning friends. I would be someone's 2edgy4u self-insert oc, Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way style, because it actually didn't matter what people thought of me. That's not just something adults tell you, as it turns out.

     I would make the weirdest fucking posters and put them up around school just for my own entertainment. I'd take random surveys from the teachers, like a guy I knew did. Hell, I'd take random surveys of my classmates for no real reason, just to get opinions. Again, your social standing doesn't actually matter, because once you graduate, you're all just adults all of a sudden. The times I was normal weren't the memorable or fun ones. As weird as I already was, I could've been weirder more openly; I could've been more of a menace.

     I would talk to the people who I thought were too cool or too far out of my social circle. I drink with one of them now, but it would've been cool to spend more time with them when we were stuck in the same building 5 days a week instead of now when we have adult schedules to plan around. I'd have fought to wear a suit to prom. I'd have grown out my shitty moustache several more times. 

     I would skip more classes because I never skipped one, and I regret not fucking around more as someone with consistently good grades. I had plenty of room to skip out. My best memories are from the least productive classes. I would have climbed the roof, maybe??? Accessed more places I shouldn't have been, because I might get a strict telling off or an in-school suspension, but not a charge like I would now as an adult.

     I would ask more people to sign my yearbook. People I hated, people who hated me, people I never talked to.

     Hindsight is 20/20; from a class of 2024, Be a fucking freak.