The Perks of Being a Normo Girl

By Kenzie Eyles

“It is my first day of high school ever, and I need to turn things around.”

At eleven, I thought high school was a movie waiting to happen. I thought there would be a defining moment. A montage. A makeover. A dramatic walk through the gates where suddenly I became someone else.

Someone cooler. Someone louder. Someone worth remembering.

But I didn’t become that.

Not the school captain.

Not the dux.

Not the girl with 10 thousand followers or a parking spot with her name on it.

Instead, I became a Normo girl. And for six years, that's what we've called ourselves. Normo girls.

A girl who sat in classrooms and complained about assessments.

A girl who spent far too much money at the cafe.

A girl who promised herself she’d start studying next week.

A girl who always thought there would be more time.

The nickname became so normal that I stopped hearing it.

Until now. Because now I'm trying to imagine who I am without it.

In The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Charlie spends a lot of time watching people. Watching friendships. Watching moments. Watching life happen around him.

I think I spent a lot of high school doing the same thing. Always looking ahead. Waiting for Year 12. Waiting for freedom. Waiting for the version of myself I thought I'd become.

And while I was busy waiting, life was happening anyway.

There were also moments when simply getting through the day felt like an achievement. When things inside my own head were louder than I wanted them to be, I found myself relating to Charlie in a way I never expected. But like him, I learned that even when you're struggling, there are still people, moments and little reasons to keep showing up.

Charlie said, “As I enter the school for the first time, I will visualize what it would be like on the last day of my senior year. Unfortunately, I counted, and that's one thousand three hundred and eighty-five days.”

One thousand three hundred and eighty-five days sounded endless.

Now it sounds like nothing.

Because somewhere between Year 7 and Year 12, between timetable changes and formal dresses and panic before exams, those days stopped being numbers.

They became people.

The friend who sat next to me in core class, who became my best friend.

The teacher who believed in me before I believed in myself.

The conversations that lasted five minutes but somehow became memories I'll carry forever.

Maybe that's what nobody tells you about growing up.

You spend so much time waiting to become somebody that you forget you're already becoming someone.

And maybe being a normo girl was never something to escape.

Maybe it was the whole point.

Because while I wasn't busy being extraordinary, life was happening anyway.

And now, standing at the end of those one thousand three hundred and eighty-five days, I think Charlie from The Perks of Being a Wallflower got one thing exactly right:

"I know these will all be stories someday."

One day you're walking through the gates for the first time. The next, you're walking out of them for the last. And somehow there are six years in between.

Six years of uniforms. Six years of bells. Six years of becoming people we couldn't have imagined when we first arrived.

I used to think the best part of school would be graduating. Now I think the best part was all the moments in the middle.

The embarrassing ones.

The beautiful ones.

The ordinary ones.

Especially the ordinary ones.

Because years from now, nobody will remember our assessment marks or who won Music Fest in 2023, 2024, and 2025. (Maye)

But we'll remember each other.

For six years, Loreto gave us a place to belong. Friends who became family. Teachers who believed in us. A community that somehow felt ordinary while we were living it and extraordinary once it was gone.

Maybe that's why leaving feels so strange. Because the walls haven't changed. The classrooms haven't changed. But we have.

And for the first time, I understand what Charlie meant when he said:

"I know these will all be stories someday."

Because they already are.

And in this moment, before we all become stories to one another, before we stop being Normo girls and become whatever comes next,

And in this moment, I swear, we are infinite.