My Memoir Part 1

Just Because

Cheyenne Bonnell

Personal Memoir

Hey There

Well, my name is Cheyenne (if you haven’t already figured that out). At some point in my life, I grew up. Not into an adult (boring and serious all the time), but I grew up. It’s hard to explain how exactly this “growing up” occurred, but I am sure you know what I mean; cause you’ve been there, too. I may not be able to describe this process that every nine and ten year old kid wants to do (and every 17 year old dreads), but I can tell you when it started. It all began at the end of eighth grade...

The Eighth Grade

I have been an honor roll student since I was in kindergarten (not to gloat or anything). I don’t know how they graded things at your elementary school, but at mine, we did the 1 2 3 4 system. A four is like an A+; you are above the standards, and are doing well. A three is like a C+; you are at the standard. level. A two, it’s not that great; it’s like a D. You almost meet the standard, but not quite. And a one, well, no one wants to get a one. It’s the nice way of tell you that you are failing miserably. I had all threes and fours in elementary school. And in the middle school, once we were graded with the letter/percent system. I had all A’s and B’s.. I did well in math, science, social studies, and language arts. Art was my favorite subject, the library my favorite place to go. Gym was fun, too (I began tapping into my hidden leadership skills early). Everything was good. And then towards the end of the eighth grade, my grades started slipping in language arts. I had a great teacher. His name was Mr. A. He has known my mom for years, and has known me since I was little. I couldn’t keep up in that class for some reason. I couldn’t focus long enough to read the books that were assigned to me, even though I loved reading. I had to use other peoples notes in class because I couldn’t sit still long enough to take my own. And on the rare occasion that I tried to take my own notes, I couldn’t read them later on when I needed them. I tried to study for every test, and each time I would fail..: and I wasn’t able to retake it..

Umm.....What?

I was fed up with failing all the time, and getting yelled at by my mom for not doing well. Every time I brought home a progress report that had a C on it, she would yell at me saying “Why do you have a C? Is it because you’re not handing in your work? WHy aren’t you handing in work? Look at all these F’s! What are you doing? You need to be better.” And then I would be grounded from going to church, and to my youth group, and hanging out with my friends.

I had heard from one of my older friends, that students who play sports tend to do better in school because they have to maintain a certain grade in order to stay on the team. So, I played basketball. I had played before in younger grades, but I didn’t know anybody and felt very out of place. So I tried it again. I played with my best friend Tameka. We were crazy on the court. I was the tallest girl on the team, and played left post. Right under the hoop. We won every game.

I had heard about lacrosse. I knew it was quite violent, but it looked like a lot of fun. So I tried that, too. Mr. A ran a Cityscape Program after school and taught us how to play. He coached the girls lacrosse team at our high school. So, naturally, (and in order to keep everyone safe), he taught us to play by the girls rules, but with boys sticks. I fell in love with the sport. All I wanted to do was play. But I had no one to play with. I enjoyed the six week program, and then put playing to rest.

I hated myself in the eighth grade. I didn’t like the way I looked, I didn’t like the way I talked, I didn’t like anything about myself. The thing I hated the most was my hair. It was long, curly, and VERY blonde. Looking back now, I wish I had kept it that way. But instead, me, being a typical insecure eighth grader, I dyed my hair. What color, you ask? But of course a bright, red velvet. My hair looked like the inside of a red velvet cupcake. I loved it. No one recognized me the day after I dyed it at school. It was weird. People looked at me differently. They looked at me like they wanted to talk to me. Like I was this new toy. And for a while, I liked it. But it got old. I kept up with the coloring, but the socialization piece of it wasn’t my cup of tea anymore. So, I decided that I would focus more on school. My grades went up, and I stopped worrying about myself for a while. Started focusing on everyone else’s problems thinking that if I could solve theirs, then maybe all of mine would go away. SO I started fixing people. Someone was in a bad relationship, I would tell them what it looked like from the outside, and have them, decide what to do. And it worked.

I was happier. I had more friends, I had deeper friendships. Then when graduation came along, there was a hurricane that passed through and flooded most of town. It displaced almost half of the population. So they all lived the towns auditorium (which is where we planned to have our graduation ceremony). Every year in the past, graduation was held here. And us, being the cool eighth graders that we were, wanted to go out with a bang. You know? When you get all stupid on adrenalin and you go and accept your middle school diploma or whatever. We ended up having to have our graduation ceremony in our gym. Which was (by far) not big enough to hold all 125 of us, and all of our parents, brothers and sisters, uncles, aunts, cousins, and the previous graduating class from the year before. It was chaos, but it was fun. We all graduated together. We had become a little family. It was nice.

Summer came, we all had fun., July came, and we all went crazy. August rolled around at some point (which came sooner than we had wished), and we settled down into the act of being a real student. We tried to grow up. Become a real teenager. Be a cool high school kid. You know how it is. And then this..this is where the adventure turns more into an episode of some weird tv show mash-up of Degrassi and Survivor. Yeah....

Fresh Meat

Describe your first day of school using one adjective.

Mine would have to be ‘interesting’. Why? Well, we had freshman orientation, and that was really cool. We had these contortionists and other people come for a presentation on succeeding and following your dreams. They told us that high school is really the foundation for the rest of your life. I found that out real quick. The second day of my high school career, was the first day of school for the rest of the student body (10-12 graders). Ean Hulbert (I believe that’s how you spell his name) was student council president and senior class president my freshman year. Well, since the doors open out into the hallways, we have this thing called “door checking”. When you open the door and accidentally hit them (usually in the face), it’s called a door check. Well, I door checked Ean the second day of school. During our first passing period, too. Great start to the day, right? Well, it got worse. At my school, we had 16 pairs of twins my freshman year. And one of the most well known pair of twins were the Avery twins. Matt and Kevin Avery. I door checked them both as well that SAME day; as you can see, my day didn’t get my better.

Over all, freshman year was pretty good. With the exception of my two best friends Anna and Tameka calling me a whore when I was fully dressed. I had on this huge sweatshirt, a pair of skinny jeans, and Ugg boots. The sweatshirt was zipped up to my collar bone. I was so taken back by this. I stopped talking to them for a while and started hanging out with other people that weren’t exactly the best influences. And I started to get in trouble. BUt, me and my girls made up, and life went on as normal. Then....the summer came, and that’s when all hell broke loose in my life.