It was a dark and rainy day back in the October of 2002. My first-grade class was on their way to recess. Except, there was only one thing holding them back:
We needed a line leader.
The teacher looked around at her class full of students to pick out just who would reign champion line leader over the rest of these peasants. Everyone knew there could only be one ultimate line leader brave enough to accept the challenge, and everyone knew that one was me. As a six-year-old, this was going to be the most important thing I would do up to that point. Being a first-grade line leader is the most important thing any six or seven-year-old could do.
There was so much pressure. The weight of the whole world rested on my shoulders. The crippling fear of not getting my class to recess in one whole entity gave me anxiety that I had never felt. I held my teacher's hand, looked up to what seemed to be the very tall woman and said, "Let's do this."
I took the teacher's hand and puffed my chest out in efforts to try and make myself seem more bold than usual. Keeping up with her was hard because her legs were longer than my entire body. We turned corner after corner, walking endlessly for what seemed miles until we were lined up to make sure everyone had made it to the door to go outside safely. Had I done my job? Did I prove myself worthy? I had, but of course, I had. I was line leading champion supreme, a god.
Time went on, and I was called on time and time again to lead my class to some of the most important places like gym class, the library, recess, music class, and even to the bathroom every now and then. This responsibility was placed on my shoulders so often, it clearly boosted my ego. I may have been a tiny six-year-old, but I held all the power of lines in the incredibly small palms of my hands. I could take my class anywhere...that the teacher would allow. My fellow classmates thought I was the coolest kid in the class, as did I.
Eventually, I was too old to be a first-grade line leader on account of I was in second grade. The lines in second went from straight, single file lines to mobs of snot-nosed brats stampeding the hallways. All order was lost. The comfort of a straight line I had once known had disintegrated over the course of three months. The older I got, the more I realized there would no longer be a line nor would there be anyone to lead it. Once I got to middle school, I saw how we had to get our own selves to our own classes without anyone there to lead us, which explains how I got lost on the first day of school so many times.
I eventually got into high school and settled on the fact that I would never lead a line again because there were no lines to be led. I've been out of high school since 2015, and the emptiness I feel is still a reality. The gaping hole in my heart where my love for the line once remained has turned to a black hole. I'm a has-been, washed up with the rest of my career. I'm 19 now, and still trying to find things to get my fame back up and running. I'm probably in the "Where Are They Now: Elementary School Editions."
