You've Come A Long Way, Baby

I just watched this Grey's Anatomy episode online, since I have no work to do. It was all about how we never really get over high school, even as we grow up and move on as adults, a part of us is still stuck in the mold high school shoved us into. I guess that is partially true. Whenever I get together with people I knew then, gossip about high school and what's happened since reigns. It's like nothing else will be as big as high school, until maybe we all start having kids. I don't know if it's just an American construction, or if it's because high school involves a bunch of different kids living through their formative years together, like a huge petri dish, but it does stay with you.

I hated high school. Hated it. I thought it was a major waste of my time, not because I didn't think I needed an education, but because I didn't think I was getting one. I was mostly getting busywork. I would never want to repeat it, even if I could go back in time with my current knowledge. I'd still feel like a mouse. I spent so much time and energy re-inventing who I wanted to be that I'm sure people thought I was strange. I was seeking that magic combination, the one where I instantly transform into someone who doesn't care what others think, and is also admired by everyone. I think that was important for me, I discovered who I wanted to be, who I was, and who I could never be. That is something I still have, a knowledge of who I am and who I could never be.

At the same time, I don't think I'm trapped by it. I think some people can be so traumatized by how they were treated in high school that they can't see what they've become. They can't see what everyone who has met them since sees. I guess that's why realizing that my friends are not only cool looking but also cool people made me so happy the other night. Sometimes I stop and observe and without realizing it, compare them to high school. That's when I notice how far I've come. In high school I would have never dreamed I could have such friends. I would have felt inadequate and shy. And because they're older I would have felt that difference much more than I do now. But I also think that the really cool people, the coolest ones out there today, were not the ones you thought of as popular or hip in high school. So maybe my friends that I think of as cool and stylish and smart and funny would have been just as awkward as I was then. We've grown into ourselves and the changes are nice. It makes us better people.

Now I can make friends and feel like they want to be my friend for a reason. In high school I never thought that. Or at least, I was always a little suspicious. And friends that I've made since then, that I knew in high school, but never spoke to, have revealed themselves to be different than what I expected. I don't think I live in a clique, like Grey's made it out to be. I think that I do have a circle of friends and there are some people that aren't part of that circle, but because we don't have that friendship chemistry. We're not of the same tribe. They have their own circle. I don't think anyone looks at me and thinks, I wish she'd be my friend, but she's a popular snob. If you fit with me I'll be your friend. I spent too much time in high school worrying about being "cool" and missing out on great friends around me by not talking to them.

High school remains an important part of our lives, sometimes it is to our detriment, sometimes it is for our betterment. But I don't think that Grey's has it exactly right. I think we do get past it, we do move on. Even if we keep the friends we had then we can add new ones, ones we wouldn't have had before. And we grow into people who are fascinating because of the differences that high school points out so clearly.