I wasn't cool in high school. At all. I was the semi-nerdy swimmer who floundered through AP Bio and wore Birkenstock-ish shoes on an almost-daily basis. Sometimes I chalk this up to moving after 8th grade to Granite Bay and then returning to Santa Barbara before junior year of high school, but really I was just socially awkward and unsure of who I was. Granted, I know the notion of "knowing your identity" escapes all high school kids, but some people (clearly, not me) are/were better at hiding it than others. Sometimes I see myself in the faces and phrases of my current students-- lost, uncomfortable, perpetually embarrassed-- and I cringe knowingly. I've been there. It sucks. It'll get better.
However, while I may have tiptoed through the shadows of high school relatively uninvolved and silent, my small group of close friends provided a safe-haven of laughter, unity, and the collective despise of taking the tarps off the pool for early morning swim practice. Last weekend, three of my best friends from high school congregated in Carlsbad for a reunion. For the last few years, these three women have been honing their professional, respectable, and exceptional interests and skills in expensive universities and impressive careers. It had probably been ten years since the four of us spent time as an assembled unit, yet we fell into our old habits, jokes, and intricacies as though mere weeks had passed. We spent hours filling each other in about our lives, reminiscing about our high school adventures, and remembering the unique bond of our teenage days.
By definition, we're adults now. Moving forward in the professional world, approaching thirty, and paying our own car insurance. Filing our taxes and remembering to get an oil change. Defrosting the chicken and buying slacks. But really, the sixteen-year-old within each of us is just underneath that outer shell, surfacing to do cartwheels on the beach or double over in laughter remembering an inappropriate instance with a particular SBSC teammate. You know, circa 1998. And it's funny, because while our content and lethargic behavior may have been cheese-platter-and-wine-induced last weekend, it's eerily redolent of our Gatorade-and-trail-mix post-swim practice couch-lounges a decade ago...
"Ah, how good it feels! The hand of an old friend."
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
2 comments:
birkenstock-like shoes WITH SOCKS
Looks like you girls had a blast. I just have to point out the huge box of splenda that happens to be sitting on the coffee table - only in your house :)
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