I'm in limbo. My last day of school was Tuesday, but I don't graduate until next Wednesday. I'm done with high school, or I'm at least done going to high school, but it doesn't feel like it at all. It's not that the four years flew by at lightning speed; far from it. Everyone says that, but they're wrong. Everyone said that the world was flat until some dead old guy proved them all wrong.

So I obviously learned a lot in high school, too, but what do you expect when your AP American History teacher's idea of a 'lesson' is a rundown of the 69 characteristics of a hippie (#27: Infrequent bathing)? I think the bulk of the knowledge I gained in high school was learning how to deal with nonsensical administrative bullshit as opposed to the finer points of trigonometry, but I suppose the former is more useful than the latter in the long run. When I'm ninety-seven and in a euphemistically titled 'assisted living community,' I'll have to deal with bitchy diaper-changing nurses, but I don't think I'll need to know the cosine of a right angle. That's what calculators are for anyway.

The whole world is changing, and that's a lesson in itself. There are things that I cling to for my sanity, things that remain constant for the sole purpose of reminding me that there is order to be found in the world. At least, there were things that kept me grounded in reality. There used to be a red car parked in front of the school every night when I drove home from work. Robert Stack used to solve mysteries on cable TV late at night. I used to have a strictly regimented routine that I loved to hate. Nothing's the same anymore.

While we're talking about dead celebrities, Lynn Thigpen passed away earlier this year. Her most recent role was on The District, but I remember her from her days as The Chief on the PBS game show version of ,i>Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? No one I've talked to remembers this show, but I watched it every day after school for years. It was about geography and at the end, there was a race to locate world cities on a giant map. I thought it was really cool and I wanted to be on it so Lynn Thigpen could give me some cool prizes, but that dream ended when I learned the show only featured contestants from New York City. We all know what happens to a dream deferred (who am I, Sidney Poitier all of the sudden?), but Lynn Thigpen was a part of my childhood and it's sad to see her go in a bizarre way. Remember when Mr. Hooper died on Sesame Street? That's kind of the same thing.

I keep wondering when stuff is going to start happening, but it doesn't. I got up today at 11:45 and watched hours of crappy daytime television while I waited for someone to call me. Nothing's happening because no one knows what to do.

There was an episode of The Simpsons in which Homer became an astronaut. Somehow, the ant colony on the space shuttle broke open and the ants began floating around the cabin. "Freedom," moaned one of the ants. "Horrible, horrible freedom." It makes a little sense, I hope, that I feel somewhat lost after thirteen years of rigorous instruction. I know I have another eight years ahead of me (at least; good Lord, that's a lot of school), but college is an entirely different ballgame.

I wonder if I just need the closure of the graduation ceremony before I get on with my life. It's anticlimactic, really, but it's a necessary part of growing up, or so I'm told. Will it take all that much-storied pomp and circumstance for me to see that it's really over, that I couldn't go back again even if I wanted to? Will I ever see most of these people again? There are a few that I know I'll keep in touch with, but I can count them on one hand. Given the faculties of our senior class historian, our prospects for a successful ten-year reunion are only slightly better than the chances of a third season of Sports Night, so I may never hear from the other 394 people in my class again. Not that that's a bad thing. I don't even know most of them, and I'd like to forget many of them, but sometimes I wonder just how far we'll go. Will any of these people have any effect on my life after next Wednesday? I suppose only time will tell.

It just occurred to me that I forgot to clean out my locker. I left behind a 'Get Fuzzy' comic strip and a line from "Lovers in a Dangerous Time" that has served me well in the last year: "Nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight/You've got to kick at the darkness 'til it bleeds daylight." It's vaguely profound that I begin and end the year with the same thought.

So what now? If today is any indication, my summer will be filled with Dill Pickle flavored potato chips, the new Orange Mountain Dew (yum!), all kinds of music, yelling obscenities at the TV, sleeping late, shopping trips during which I run into former classmates, and insecurity about the future. I'll take it, but first I have one more week of limbo to slog through.

The world's changing.