A Deconstruction of My High School Self

May was the month I graduated high school. In this box lies the few tenuous connections I have to high school Hannah. Here lies an abstraction of my past self.

Gum from the braces I donned freshmen year

Pin and bookmark from a pen pal of mine at the beginning of high school. We still keep in touch on Facebook. Anyone that knows me knows I love Wes Anderson and The Royal Tenenbaums. This mordecai pin is one of my most prized possessions.

Starbucks gift card, order, and receipt. My journalism teacher bet me a Starbucks gift card that all the writers would meet their deadlines. They didn't, but I got a few free drinks.

A fortune a friend gave me sophomore year. It came true I guess.

Sketches and plans for my first issue as editor-in-chief of the school magazine. It looked nothing like this.

A post-it my journalism teacher gave me. The only note I was ever slipped.

The summer in between junior and senior year I attended The School of the New York Times. They gave us temporary tattoos that I never used.

A key ring a former paramour gave me. He found it on top of a parking lot, and pretended it had cost him a lot of money.
We were horrible together.

A bus pass for a bus we went on at a journalism convention in Dallas.

My friend's list of the best songs he discovered in 2017.

I don't believe in the concept of reinventing yourself, not that I would want to anyway. I could participate in numerous end of the year bonfires but I think I'd prefer to keep this junk boxed up for a little while longer. I like to view my past (and the physical manifestations of my past) as an artifact in a museum, something no longer in existence (or rather, no longer with existent context) but perhaps worth preserving. I think it''s a much healthier way of letting go.