There’s a children’s book you might remember from the mid‑80s called If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. It chronicles a delightful chain of events after a little mouse asks for a cookie. And that brings us to how I arrived here in front of my computer telling you a story. It started when I decided to clean my desk, something I like to do almost never, as this desk is a sacred shrine to piles. All hail the mighty piles! You see, pilgrimages to this sacred space are rare, but typically occur when I randomly decide it’s either time to freshen the piles or, perhaps, shove some piles aside to start a new pile, or I’m insanely bored. So many possibilities!

The piles consist of things like random notebooks, stickers that remain unstuck, books hoping their owner will one day get a bigger bookshelf or maybe an additional bookshelf (books aren’t picky), along with miscellaneous headphones, controllers, dice, printer ink, cards, ornaments like a goldfish wearing antlers and a walrus in a festive sweater (err… I don’t judge your ornaments!). Anyway, you get the idea. It’s a catchall, and all of it is very random and very me.

As I embarked on my mouse‑like journey by cleaning up the shrine (pushing the piles around into a new, more pleasing pile formation), my computer woke up, beckoning me over with the hum of its fan and its purple glow. While there, I happened to glance down and see a lanyard from an event I attended. That led to a search for information on my blog. Then I realized I no longer have “search” as an option on my home page, which meant I had to go into the blog’s innards to see if I could add that widget without messing things up too badly. Then I saw a writing prompt that read “Something I learned in high school,” and that reminded me I haven’t written in a while. And then and then and then, which got us here — me sitting in front of my monitor typing out words.

This topic is tough; I learned a lot, and I could easily bog you down with a million hard‑won lessons and a million and one easily won ones, but for now I’ll tell you one small story, and then I’ll leave you with some story ideas that I’ll expand on if you leave a comment and say, “Yep, that one, I want to hear more about that one.”

By the time I hit 9th grade, I was really over bullies. I had finished 8th grade without any incidents, and I wasn’t particularly in the mood for that streak to end, but there I was — one of the youngest people in a school of over 550‑ish kids, a freshman, a “fish.”

You might be surprised to learn that there are bullies in orchestra (or if you’ve been in one, maybe not). Yes, even “dork‑estra” has bullies, which was a bummer because my expectation was that it would be my safe space — a place where I could just “be me.” Nope. Well, not in those first few months at least.

The first day of class, an upperclassman – a guy who was one of the varsity football player/violinists who sported the jankiest of fingers thanks to multiple related breaks – not‑so‑politely outlined the expectations of being an orchestra “fish.” (FYI – to add some perspective – none of what actually happened to us came close to what the freshman band kids went through – eeeshh.) Still, I bristled, because Janky‑Fingered Joe would never be the boss of me.

For the first few months, I quietly toed that line. I set up the chairs and stands for rehearsal, I reset the chairs and stands at the end, and I quietly did all the other drudgery thrown my way with no promise of a Fairy Godmother or even one delightful singing rodent named Gus‑Gus to bibbidi‑bobbidi‑boo me into a better situation – just like the other two freshmen – because Janky Joe said so and the upperclassmen seemed to be in agreement.

Then I was over it, and the way I declared that to the world (or just the rest of the orchestra) was a day when Janky Joe told me I was receiving a demerit. I scoffed, because by that time I realized the tiger had no teeth. So I bowed up a bit and enthusiastically declared to the group, using my shouting voice, that demerits weren’t a real thing. Then I invited him to go crazy handing them out, because at the end of the day they had no impact on my life – they didn’t affect my grade, they didn’t affect my standing in orchestra, they were just BS.

I think that may have been the same day his affronted violinist henchman (truly there’s nothing that strikes fear into the heart like a lanky violinist henchman) Mark plucked me off the ground and unceremoniously stuffed me into a very tall trash bin, butt‑first. Do you know how hard it is to get out of a trash bin when your butt is shoved inside and your arms and feet are waggling about? I managed.

The next time I challenged the upperclassmen, Violinist Henchman Mark grabbed one of my feet and hopped me across the band hall to a door hinge where the doors had been removed. There he tied that foot to the middle hinge. Do you know how hard it is to unknot your shoelace while standing on one foot? I managed.

I kept pushing it and pushing it. I may have been carried about more only to be deposited in new exciting places. Chairs may have been thrown occasionally (maybe by me – maybe I went through a dramatic teen‑girl thing, no one knows, there are no videos). We had a little orchestra war, and in the end, I won. And by the time I became the president of our orchestra, freshmen weren’t hazed, because it was ridiculous. (Probably the best thing I did as president, truth be told.)

So, the key things I learned…

• I was brave before I knew I was brave.
• Bullies aren’t always villains, but they can be a gigantic PITA when you first meet them.

There you go!

Some of the other lessons I learned in high school?

• Don’t underestimate the brilliant wild child; she’ll open your world.
• A first kiss before a final is terrible for concentration.
• You can always find your people — love you, nerds.
• Liking the same boy is… problematic.
• No one to dance with? Dance anyway.
• Calling people stupid won’t win you sympathy, especially if you don’t stick the Valedictorian landing.
• Nicknames can follow you into adulthood – 40 years later, you’ll still answer to them.
• And the big one: the story is never over. You close a chapter, and find a new one starts writing itself.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll get back to cleaning up this desk.