I try to be both physically and mentally present every day, but sometimes my body attends class without me. My eyes follow the teachers, but I don’t see them. I listen to my classmates, but all their voices blend together until they reach the auditory equivalent of the color gray, if that makes sense.
Time becomes this abstract concept, moving like molasses at the worst times, and sometimes it flies. I will stare at the clock for thirty minutes only to find that two actual minutes have passed.

I itch to escape the constraints of my Chicago Public School–issued chair and desk. I crave the hallways like I crave coffee. The “bathroom breaks” are precious metal, hidden within my gilded schedule. I have been known to exceed my allotted time to “get a drink of water,” and I have returned to stern-faced teachers. I have had my privileges to leave the classroom revoked on several occasions, but I refuse to concede that I ever wasted my time. They were justified in their dissatisfaction because they saw my behavior as a sign of disrespect – which it wasn’t – but no one was willing to understand that.

I love the quiet, I love the loneliness of an empty hall. The duplicity amazes me still. It can be loud and chaotic, filled with raging hormonal high schoolers, but it can also just be me and the sound of my footsteps echoing softly.

My mental presence exists without my physical presence as well. I can be thinking of a class when I’m not there. I will be pondering prompts in my sleep and mentally preparing introductions on the train ride home. Before I began writing, this essay ran laps through my mind like a track team in the spring. I wanted to be honest about the parts of school that are hard for me, to show that I’m trying to do better. Even if it means risking my credibility as a student, or your first impression of me, I want to be honest.

So if I close my eyes in class, please don’t think I’m drifting off to sleep. I promise you I am not. I’ve struggled to define this experience. The best way I can explain it is this: if I cannot physically leave when I feel the irreversible urge to do so, I take matters into my own hands and mentally check out. No other coping mechanism compares. After all, isn’t it better that I stay zoned out in my desk versus acting on my restlessness? I can only imagine the consequences of telling teachers I can’t listen to their voice for another second.

After all, it isn’t my teachers’ fault that math isn’t my calling. It isn’t my teachers’ fault that I despised stoichiometry and don’t possess the motivation to teach it to myself. It’s my fault for only allowing the words “test” and “quiz” to bypass the fog of my dilly dallying mind.

So far I’ve written about my mental and physical presence as if the two don’t overlap, but they do. The moments that I am truly all there are few and far between, but they occur when I am inspired (and during finals). I write to you with an open mind, but don’t feel pressured to inspire me.

It is in my nature to be pessimistic, but I am optimistic about learning, so if my presence in class appears partial, if I’m drawing sketches with a Sharpie, tuning the world out with headphones, or staring blankly out the window, please know I clung to my attention span for dear life before I got distracted.