Wednesday, October 22, 2008

High School

A few of my high school friends have found me through Facebook and for that I am ever so grateful. It's funny though... I mentioned in an email to one of them that I was jealous he'd stayed in touch with so many people from high school because I wasn't even able to do that during high school. Plenty of people have angst about high school and I was certainly one of those teenagers who was convinced she wasn't good enough, or smart enough, or pretty enough (blah, blah, blah - same old story).

Even people with that level of angst, however, usually manage to stay in touch with their core group and I just haven't been good about that. I think I had a core group, but maybe I didn't...perhaps that's the issue. (Hmm....) This May will be my 20th anniversary of graduation from high school (oh, yeah...I'm old) and it just makes one think. I was chatting with our awesome babysitter last night and asking her how school was - she mentioned how stressful everything was because once you add homework in with weekly obligations like sports, jobs, etc, you have no time to breathe. It hit me like a ton of bricks how some things never change, they just morph into new versions of reality.

Her busy high school life wasn't any less stressful than the work/mom/health nut life that I try to lead. The emotions seem about the same and our schedules are equally wacky. I guess if I had to describe a difference between my high school life and my grown-up life, it would be that in high school I was (more or less) living my life for myself and now so many of my scheduling stresses center around the fact that I'm trying to make sure that my kids have what I think they need in their life. I'm just as crazy busy but there are many moments in the day when I don't really feel like I'm living my life for myself. That sounds much more depressing than I mean it to be - it's not a bad thing - but it is a bit of a bummer when I have to plan 4 weeks out just to see a movie that I really want to see for myself.

2 comments:

Renee said...

I understand completely. I recently reconnected with people from high school, from a website set up for the reunion last year that I didn't go to. At first, I honestly thought what's wrong with me that I didn't keep in touch with all these people? But it only took a month to realize I'm a conversation snob. I don't want to hear about the latest scandal in Gonzales, or the dress code or who is divorcing who b/c they were cheating with whom. I would never have thought I was a snob, but I am. It's not that I think I'm better than anyone back home. I'm sure most of them have far more successful lives than I do. But after a month of listening to the blather, I unsubscribed to the group. I was a "floater" in high school. In Survivor that's the deathknell that gets you booted, but I was a member of every clique and liked everyone, but I wasn't indentifiable with any one group. Most of the people that I thought were the most interesting in school aren't even in that yahoo group anyway. I'm stunned to find out that while I wouldn't recognize myself from 20 years ago, most people are exactly the same, at least those who never left Gonzales. I don't know. I guess I just never understood what it was about high school that makes people think they are automatically friends for life just because their parents live in the same zipcode.

JennInAustin said...

That is SO TRUE. I was a real floater too - big time. Had friends all over the map. Maybe it's genetic....we have the "floating gene."