Friday, April 16, 2010

High School and what it meant to you

This post might seem a little off the mark, so to speak. But if you know me at all, you know that is how my tiny mind works. I am going along thinking about one thing and then...
(((BAM)))...
just like that I forget about it and start thinking about some other random thing.

My Random Thing right now is High School.

Let me say first and foremost that I didn't really like High School all that much. I wasn't a jock or a head or a hick, but a combo of all of that with a heaping dose of NERD thrown in to make it interesting. Lucky me. As a matter of fact I High School was such a non issue that I have forgotten a whole lot of it. Even though I had my reunion ( 35 years) last year- I still can't remember a whole lot.

I remember the stuff that happened after school, or at home, but even that is sort of hazy. ( Ahh you Freudians are thinking that I forget because I am subverting something bad. You may be right. We will never truly know.)

But one of my unnamed girlfriends remembers a LOT about high school! Who was in her class, what they did, where they sat, who she had a crush on, who she ate lunch with. She is still hanging onto a lot of the baggage that she acquired in High School. To the point that now, 35 years later, she has reconnected with another one of our classmates and they are discussing the days past in great detail, to no one's benefit ( except my intrigued mind)!

And then there is my current favorite show GLEE.

I love that show- and I don't really know why. I like the singing and dancing, but I am facinated with the kids in the show too. And tonight I find myself asking ( as if they are really high school kids) " Are they going to be carrying around all this heartbreak and longing all of their lives too?

AND THEN I started wondering if everyone did- except me?

Do you?

Do you carry around the baggage that was put on you by your high school failures, and loves and teachers and expectations?

Do we all do it?

Do we get past it?

And what is it about those years in High School that make us remember them ( mostly) and think they were so great?
I know I am so much better than I was then.
Smarter.
Braver.
Happier.
How about you?

6 comments:

Lil Mama said...

I don't think I carry it around. However I do have nightmares that there was a mistake and I have to go back at this age and finish! Yikes. The part about the dream that I hate is that I can't remember where all the classes are.

Maia said...

Well, like you high school was not that much of a big deal for me. Actually, at the time I considered it an endurance race until I could get to college.

What was I like back then, I was an art bag, intellectual. I liked to go to coffee houses and I played the guitar. I don't remember a whole lot about the day to day things, because I didn't think they were that important.

I do, however, think it's sad when someone gets fixated on any part of their past. If anyone period of time was the best, yikes, does that mean that everything since then has been a disapointment.

I also think that those of us who had middling times in high school were the luckiest. We didn't graduate thinking the world was going to fall down at our feet, simply because we showed up. A setup for sorrow if ever there was one. Nor were we left with hideous insecurities caused by years of subtle abuse.

You always come up with the best topics. This one is great.

Rising Rainbow said...

High school was just another part of my life. I made some good friends there and sometimes I wonder where they all ended up but that's about it. It's not baggage I pack around.

Funny though, now I just remembered this girl that got me into a lot of trouble in HS. I was talking horses with her (she had them, I didn't) and she told people I was a liar. That I was making stuff up because people didn't raise horses like that.

I was a liar because the guy I spoke about wasn't my uncle but what I told her was the truth. I told her all about his farm and the horses he raised.Guess she didn't know as much as she thought about horses and guess I knew more than I realized.

I learned a lot from that man that has helped me with what I do now. I didn't learn a thing from that girl except I couldn't trust her. I thought she was my friend and instead she was talking about me behind my back. Funny how those things can come back when you least expect them.

Vaquerogirl said...

I have those nightmare too! They are ghastly!
I guess childhood is the time when you find out about trust and confidence and consequence. At least you should- some folks never do- thus those horrid Housewives shows!
!

GunDiva said...

I wish I'd been a little less "good" in high school. I was so serious, always working either at one of my after school jobs or in the training room (so, yes I knew all of the popular jocks and had seen them at their worst - there's nothing cool about being hurt) or at Fellowship of Christian Athletes or at Bible Study or at Youth Group or...

I maybe should have loosened up a little bit and learned to have some fun; I was totally unprepared for parenting teenagers. Drinking, partying, pot smoking, sex - none of that crossed my mind in high school. Now that I've got kids in high school, I wish I had some point of reference.

Heck, even my good Mormon husband wasn't as uptight as I was in high school (okay, maybe he wasn't such a good Mormon).

Maia said...

I'm realizing how differerent I am from you guys. I grew up in a major east coast metropolitan area. There was no Christian youth or 4H, There was only EYO, Episcopalian Youth or CYO, Catholic Youth. Those of us who loved horses, rode retired police horses, that is if our parents didn't have enough money to buy us retired dressage horses

Those of you who'se reality was different, should count your blessings,