Dear elementary school lunch tables,
I know I didn’t appreciate you at the time. I’d like to apologize. Yes, you were bossy and loud, and yes, you’d always smell like lingering bologna and sharp chemical cleaners, but for the most part, you’d make up for that. Squeezing and squirming, we’d pile into your sticky arms filled with leftover merriment and mystery goo. Forced to be friends with whomever my elbows touched, and shoes kicked with droll intent.
Perhaps now that our brains have matured and our roots have grown deeper, our boots would’ve stayed grounded and our arms clutched close to our hearts. Perhaps if we were older then, we would have protested our espoused places among your bough. Yet, you were wiser than us back then. I’d like to think we were wiser, too. Wise enough to neither pass over nor avoid those opportunities placed beside us.
I wonder if you knew what you were doing when you sat us down on your long branches. Did you realize those beside us would become cherished friends? Did you realize you were constructing new memories to stain your plastic wooden tabletops?
Whether or not you intended to, I’m grateful. I can tell by the cavernous, etched hearts and names like tattoos on your body that I am not alone in this.
My elementary school lunch table, I’d like to tell you how much I miss you.
I miss the cooking show I so gracefully performed on your chest as you sagged under the weight of a thousand warm chocolate milk cartons.
Did you know I took those home? Armies of degrading cardboard soldiers loyally transformed into scaffolding for gingerbread homes. I took parts of you home, too. I brought you to my parents. Telling them how soft their home-cooked meals melted in my mouth while I sat in your embrace. I took you to my sister. I described to her in disgusting detail the vile smell that wafted from the thick soups so carefully crafted in the boys’ empty milk cartons.
Did they make you gag too? I could tell by the lingering smell of throw-up that seeped into the sterile white floor tiles that I was not the first to feel nauseous sitting beside you.
I’m sorry if I seem to be droning on; that was not my intention. I’d like to tell you one last time how grateful I am for the time I got to spend with you. Time moves so much quicker now than it did back then. Already, I am halfway through high school, and I still see you in my friendships, family, and memories. And yet, I never gave you a proper thanks or goodbye.
So thank you. Goodbye.
