We all remember Junior High. We’ve spent most of our young adulthood trying to forget it. The braces. The breakouts. The bra-snaps. I remember Junior High like it was yesterday. I hated every minute of it. My parents got divorced. I moved. I switched schools like five fuckin’ times (three times in 8th grade alone) and basically still recall those years as some of the worst of my life. I’ve long maintained you couldn’t pay me a million dollars to go back and play a teenager on a show.

But apparently you can pay me to go back and be an aide to the 13-year old autistic kid I get to kick it with. So now---I’m back in Junior High. The reason this situation is particularly fascinating is my direct proximity to the kids. I’m on the ground with them; sitting in the small, uncomfortable desks, being tossed around in the hallways and enduring 50-minute intervals in uncomfortable red and blue plastic chairs. I’m not a teacher or a sub, so I am in no position of authority. I’m more a mediator between the tweens and the grown ups.

My First Day at school is nerve racking and disorienting. It is two days before Christmas Break; the kids are so hyped up on sugar and the teachers so ready to be done, it is impossible to truly grasp the day-to-day reality of a typical Middle School day.

But some things never change.

The bell rings. Zippers, books close, the rush to the next class. Lockers open and close. Kids, bump and crash through a shit storm of hormones on their journey to the next class. Teachers tell them to slow down. Be quiet. Pay attention. Giggles, whispers, note passing and flirty teasing. Small tables, toilets and water fountains; it’s as if everything in Middle School is designed to be as awkward as you feel.

During PE, I am sitting on the bleachers texting a question to another aide.
“Excuse me, what do you think you’re doing Missy?” I suddenly hear from behind me. “Hand it over,” the voice continues.
“Missy?” I say, turning around, confused. The teacher sees my VISITOR tag.
“Oh, sorry, I thought you were a student,” he nervously explains and scurries away.

I feel like a student. Walking into school that First Day...the smell of rotting food in lockers, paper-bag covered books, cafeteria food and pre-pubescent kids hits me on a primal level. I am nearly overcome with post-traumatic stress disorder. As I said, I moved constantly when I was a kid. Instantaneously I shrink a couple of inches and flash back to being The New Girl staring down a vast hall, looking at numbers over doors, lost, confused and scared while everyone stares at the unfamiliar face. I used to furiously tell my parents they should have named me Newgirl Walsh because I swear I wasn’t called Bridget through most of my Middle School years.

Smell can flash you back like that--especially the smell of crappy chicken tenders. I am suddenly and painfully aware of all of my old insecurities, feeling an awkwardness I supposedly left years behind me, directly in touch with all of my issues carried over from perpetually being The New Girl. All of these emotions I’ve spent years trying to bury come flooding into my bloodstream the minute that smell hits my nostrils. The reaction is visceral.

Holy shit, I’m actually back in Junior High.