Starting Fresh

I want to discuss a passage I read towards the end of the book.

“I decided I’d never go home again and I’d just see old Phoebe and sort of say goodbye to her and all, and give her back her Christmas dough, and then I’d start hitchhiking my way out West. What I’d do, I figured, I’d go down to the Holland Tunnel and bum a ride, and then I’d bum another one, and another one, and another one, and in a few days I’d be somewhere out West where it was very pretty and sunny and I could get a job at a filling station somewhere, putting gas and oil in people’s cars. I didn’t care what kind of job it was, though. Just so people didn’t know me and I didn’t know anybody. I thought what I’d do was, I’d pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes. That way I wouldn’t have to have any goddam stupid useless conversations with anybody…” (Salinger 198).

Sometimes I feel like Holden does. People suck, and you really can not count on anyone but yourself. I think he has the right idea. He is planning on doing something that I always wanted to do. I want to finish high school and then go to college somewhere far, far away. I want to go somewhere that no one knows my name. I want to make new friends. I want to start over fresh. The only difference between Holden and I is that he is skipping the school section. He is just going to go and get a job. I am going to finish my schooling and then go somewhere and start my very own small business. I just have to wait out this school period where I am stuck in a crappy place with people who are rude and do not like me. No one should stay where their high school is, in my opinion. High school shapes you into people who you are not, and you should not stay like that for the rest of your life. I want to start out somewhere new and find out who I really am. I always come up with these elaborate plans, like Holden, but I hope one day we can both go through with them.