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NRHS: Home of the Warriors

Today I woke up and put on a sweater that I haven't worn since high school. Senior year, to be specific.

It's a classy little wool number. Navy blue with cream trim. I believe that it was purchased at the Gap during a last-minute shopping spree for college interview attire. I never wound up wearing it to the interview, however, and opted instead for a highly uncomfortable and deeply unfortunate knee-length acrylic skirt/waffle shirt/blazer combination that left me looking like a very confused business-casual mishap circa 1995. I fit right in at the admissions office. I recall sending disapproving looks towards a lanky Goth girl sporting thigh-high bondage boots and a pleather micro mini. I've always wondered if she got into Smith, as well.

I'm staring at a stain on the right wrist. Brown. Most likely coffee. Most likely Dunkin' Donuts. Medium, regular (read: with cream and sugar).

What was I doing the last time I wore this sweater?

I was with PB, most likely talking my way through statistics class. I was most likely avoiding the roving eyes of Mr. C and passing notes while attempting to appear absorbed in math I haven't used since. Every senior was aware that Mr. C's statistics class was at best a joke. I remember him using his TI-83 to generate "lottery" numbers. He gave out baked goods to the student who guessed the closest. Also, he would frequently set aside entire classes to lecture us on how to gamble efficiently and share photographs of car crashes used in his driver's ed courses. PB completed his driving time with Mr. C after school and had to take his wife on errands. She was a psychic.

The last time I wore this sweater I most likely drank a Diet Coke and ate a soft pretzel from the cafeteria. For some reason having to do with it being illegal to distribute caffeine to students during school hours, I was forced to buy my Diet Coke from machines that only operated before 7:30am and after 1:45pm. I would spend my change minutes before we were ushered off to class and squirrel away my soda in my backpack until lunch time, when I could finally enjoy my room-temperature fizzy treat.

The last time I wore this sweater I most likely fought with my mother over making her late for work.

That day, like every day, I spent two hours in the car with her, driving up and down Route 6A to Nauset Regional High School and back. NRHS: Home of the Warriors.

We should have been called the WASPs.

If I close my eyes I can visualize every piece of my commute; every strip of that highway. Provincetown, Truro, Wellfleet, Eastham and back again. My mother and I would have shouting matches at 5:30am. Me, in the bathroom, taking half an hour to delicately apply my many layers of makeup. My mother in the car, windows unrolled, screaming that she was completely serious about driving away without me if I did not come out here this minute. I proceeded to swipe my lashes with another coat of mascara.

She never drove away without me. Not once.

The last time I wore this sweater, I had never lived alone. I had never eaten ribs or drank a martini. I was a little shorter and on less medication.

Today I wish I was driving up and down 6A. Past Cumberland Farms where ancient contractors talk trash around the self-serve coffee station, past the long stretches of dunes, past the drive-in movie theater, past Black Fish Creek and Friendly's Ice Cream.

This is what nostalgia feels like.