"I hated everyday of highschool.
It's funny I guess you did too.
It's funny how I never knew.
There I was, sitting right behind you..
I guess you finally stopped believing that any hope would ever find you
I knew that story, I was
sitting right behind you"
It's not too much of an exaggeration to say that I couldn't wait for high school to end. I didn't "fit" anywhere or into any of the groups and did a pretty spectacular job of isolating myself.
I was a smart kid that didn't want to hang out with the other smart kids who practiced math sets for their SATs after school and on the weekends. I was an athletic kid that would rather talk about books than stats. I wanted to be in the popular group, but I didn't drink or smoke in highschool and I wasn't religious enough (yes, there was a very religious church-going popular crowd) to fit into the other popular group. I just floundered socially. Academically, I never felt inspired. Some of the work was challenging, but not engaging.
Basically, I joined as many extra cirriculuar activities, sports and honors groups as possible to make sure that when the time came, I could get as far away from high school as I could.
I went to Smith College, 3,000 miles away from my home town. There, I found the love and support that I had been looking for in highschool. I found interesting, fiercely intelligent women who didn't put me down for using "big words" to express myself. We all secretely admitted that we liked to read, write, draw, paint and go to elitist coffee shops where people recited spoken word poetry. It was a coming out moment for the intellectualism that we had supressed throughout puberty. I reveled in it and drank up as much as I could.
Just recently, I had a friend from high school tell me that a mutual friend was looking for me on myspace. I've had a myspace account for the last two years or so, but left it completely blank and only used to occasionally message people or check other people's pages. I updated my page, added some pictures, and suddenly - it's like a windown into my past has blown open.
The crazy part is that I love the fresh air. I love finding out who got married and who got their master's degrees in chemistry or education. I'm sure that it's time that has helped heal some of the wounds that teenagers mutually inflict on each other, but people genuinely seem surprised and happy to hear from me. It's allowed me to reconnect, not only with the people that I grew up with, but with a part of myself.
I had written off the teenage version of myself as someone that I didn't want to know. Turns out, she had a lot of problems and a whole hell of a lot of insecurities, but the NSP in high school wasn't as bad as I had originally thought.
8 comments:
so what's your myspace girl??
How cool is that? Isn't it amazing how we grow and mature into these people who somehow equalize with eachother? I was sort of like you in h.s. and was dreading being with those people at my first reunion - but once there, I realized that the popular kids were actually nice, the hoods were actually nice, the jocks were actually nice, etc etc etc. Now I really look forward to reunions. Alot. I regret that we were so polarized for our formative years.
You know, I was so against the whole myspace thing for awhile. But, then I got an account just so I could check out a friend's and then I am searching and finding people and it was so cool. I found a long lost friend from when I lived in Korea through it. (found her sister, who gave me the email addy, etc.)
Very cool, now I'm going to have to add you baby!
You can't do this and not give us a link so we can add you. Myspace foul!
April
If you don't want to post it here email me.
If you know me, you can search for me through my first and last name.
Even if you only know my first name, there aren't that many of us on the internet.
I will tell you that my page identifies me by my first and middle initials, which many people think is a sexual inneundo. I was called by that name until I was 11 and asked my family to stop because I was getting teased in school.
Now go and search!
AHA! Gosh you add fast. LOL.
April
You found me fast! And my myspace is connected to my yahoo account, so I get notified when I have a new message.
Ahh...the information age.
I ran into someone from high school at Starbucks the other day.
He remembered me...I had no recollection.
I thought - apparently my skipping school, pricipal office, drinking underage ways made me notable.
What he remembered about me - very funny, pretty and always laughing.
I don't remeber that at all. I wanted out of high school and have been trying to forget it ever since.
Obviously perceptions are what you make of them.
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