I'm Drawing A Complete Blank
Okay, this has been the weirdest six months. People I haven't spoken to in ten years are all of a sudden emailing me out of the blue and it's starting to weird me out.
I reconnected with my best friend from middle school who, let me be very clear about this, was NOT my best friend in high school. I don't think we spoke to each other from junior year on, as a matter of fact. She became a mean girl, which really wouldn't matter much, except I was a mean girl and it took a hell of a lot to be meaner than me. And somehow she and her bitchy friends, who had been my bitchy friends from twelve to sixteen, decided they were superior to me. I don't know why that was. Maybe because I was in all honors level courses and they weren't and we didn't get to do those things in class that other best friends did because we didn't have class together anymore. Who knows? Maybe I suddenly wasn't cool enough. Maybe there was boy trouble in there somewhere; there usually was. Anyway, we don't talk about the past, we chat about things now by email and the occasional lunch in our hometown. It's weird, though, right?
Right before the wedding, I get an email from another kid I went to high school with, talking about our ten year reunion this fall. He gives me a website to look at with all the alumni from our class registering, so I look up an email address from my best friend Rick in high school. I email him, he emails me back, I email him again - except this time I tell him I'm getting married. And suddenly I never hear from him again. Rick and I were one of those "are they or aren't they" couples in high school. And we never "were," if you get my meaning. We never had the right timing. Then he got a serious girl friend and we all went to college. We lost touch after freshman year of college, but I always wondered about him.
So now, three days ago, I get an email from my best friend from high school, Sadie, who's out in LA living with her boy friend. It's like the apocolypse! People I thought I would never speak to again are coming out of the wood work! What is going on here?
It's been ten years. High school was a horrific experience. My favorite professor in college referred to it as a "soul sucking experience." She totally wasn't wrong. I think that's why I love Veronica Mars so much. She hates high school too. I was friendly with the popular kids, but not one of them. The jocks hated me because I was smart and I hated them because they were mean. I hung out on the fringes of most groups without actually being in one. My best friend (and, come to think of it, my sister) was a band geek. My only real serious boyfriend in high school was a jock (ironic, I know). I was mouthy, opinionated, bitchy, smarter than most of my classmates, snobby, and not afraid to let anyone know how stupid they were (some things really do never change). Can you see why high school might have sucked for me??
College was such a different experience. People there were so much less judgmental. In fact, the people I went to college with like me because I was all those things. One of them liked it so much about me he married me! My best friend in life (besides Omar) is Eva; we had four people from college involved somehow in our ceremony; I talk to Eva two or three times a week, my other roommate Laura (who's having a BABY and I can't tell you how weird that is) once or twice a month, Omar's roommate Fire Guy once or twice a month; we go to VT once a year to see everyone at homecoming; Eva sleeps on my couch almost as much as her own. These are my best friends. We might not speak to each other for six months, but when the phone rings, the conversation picked up right where it left off. There's never any catching up because someone else is always aware of what's going on in someone else's life!
High school was not like that. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to my ten year reunion. Part of me wants to go just out of sheer curiosity to see what happened to everyone else. And part of me remembers the misery of those four years and wants nothing to do with it. I didn't like those people when I had to see them every day; I doubt I'll like them any better with the passage of ten years.
I reconnected with my best friend from middle school who, let me be very clear about this, was NOT my best friend in high school. I don't think we spoke to each other from junior year on, as a matter of fact. She became a mean girl, which really wouldn't matter much, except I was a mean girl and it took a hell of a lot to be meaner than me. And somehow she and her bitchy friends, who had been my bitchy friends from twelve to sixteen, decided they were superior to me. I don't know why that was. Maybe because I was in all honors level courses and they weren't and we didn't get to do those things in class that other best friends did because we didn't have class together anymore. Who knows? Maybe I suddenly wasn't cool enough. Maybe there was boy trouble in there somewhere; there usually was. Anyway, we don't talk about the past, we chat about things now by email and the occasional lunch in our hometown. It's weird, though, right?
Right before the wedding, I get an email from another kid I went to high school with, talking about our ten year reunion this fall. He gives me a website to look at with all the alumni from our class registering, so I look up an email address from my best friend Rick in high school. I email him, he emails me back, I email him again - except this time I tell him I'm getting married. And suddenly I never hear from him again. Rick and I were one of those "are they or aren't they" couples in high school. And we never "were," if you get my meaning. We never had the right timing. Then he got a serious girl friend and we all went to college. We lost touch after freshman year of college, but I always wondered about him.
So now, three days ago, I get an email from my best friend from high school, Sadie, who's out in LA living with her boy friend. It's like the apocolypse! People I thought I would never speak to again are coming out of the wood work! What is going on here?
It's been ten years. High school was a horrific experience. My favorite professor in college referred to it as a "soul sucking experience." She totally wasn't wrong. I think that's why I love Veronica Mars so much. She hates high school too. I was friendly with the popular kids, but not one of them. The jocks hated me because I was smart and I hated them because they were mean. I hung out on the fringes of most groups without actually being in one. My best friend (and, come to think of it, my sister) was a band geek. My only real serious boyfriend in high school was a jock (ironic, I know). I was mouthy, opinionated, bitchy, smarter than most of my classmates, snobby, and not afraid to let anyone know how stupid they were (some things really do never change). Can you see why high school might have sucked for me??
College was such a different experience. People there were so much less judgmental. In fact, the people I went to college with like me because I was all those things. One of them liked it so much about me he married me! My best friend in life (besides Omar) is Eva; we had four people from college involved somehow in our ceremony; I talk to Eva two or three times a week, my other roommate Laura (who's having a BABY and I can't tell you how weird that is) once or twice a month, Omar's roommate Fire Guy once or twice a month; we go to VT once a year to see everyone at homecoming; Eva sleeps on my couch almost as much as her own. These are my best friends. We might not speak to each other for six months, but when the phone rings, the conversation picked up right where it left off. There's never any catching up because someone else is always aware of what's going on in someone else's life!
High school was not like that. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to my ten year reunion. Part of me wants to go just out of sheer curiosity to see what happened to everyone else. And part of me remembers the misery of those four years and wants nothing to do with it. I didn't like those people when I had to see them every day; I doubt I'll like them any better with the passage of ten years.
posted by Lucy Starr @ 10:14 PM
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