When The Past Comes Knocking
High school is a place where society throws hundreds of pre pubescent hormonal children into one big arena and says ‘work it out’. Its a learning ground for friendships and the most impressionable years of a young woman’s life. Girls look outside of themselves for validation during these awkward teenage years. Probably one of the reasons why we had so many female Bon Jovi look alike’s walking around the school courtyard. Seriously, if you could grow big hair and have a spiral perm, you were definitely in the ‘popular group’. Girls would either form tight impenetrable circles or like me simply just spent 6 years trying to fit in. God forbid you got labeled with a bad nickname at the start of your school life, because it stuck.
For those of us that ended up at a co-ed public school it was a time of discovering boys, who lets face it, just wanted to play with your boobs. Unless of course they were struggling with their own sexuality. In amongst all of this lets not forget why we are put there in the first place which is to make some big life decisions on WHAT TO DO WITH THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. High school is a place where you can stand out, sometimes for all the wrong reasons, or disappear into a big hole of loneliness and it can be a tough ride for a lot of people.
I was an average student with a handful of friends. I occasionally moved around from group to group but never really fit in, so I pretty much kept to myself. By year 11 I was doing my homework at lunchtime, I’d have a quick smoke at the end of the football oval and watch the boys play basketball during breaks because boys were just drama free and uncomplicated. The Year 11 camp turned me into an emotional basket case when the cigarettes ran out and my life was berated by a couple of mean girls in the boys tent one night. Obviously my ‘over sharing’ when trying to fit in with the popular girls backfired. If social media was around back in the 80’s my mum would have been on suicide watch. This one incident effected my inability to form ‘female’ friendship circles for pretty much most of my life.
Which leads me onto our upcoming High School reunion. Stop with the Facebook requests already! I keep removing myself from groups and then someone else adds me back in. Whats the life lesson here?? The past is just nipping at my heals but I know its just coming around in a big karmic circle to make sure I’ve evolved and moved on.
“In movies, the reunion is seen as the place where your emotional tether to the past is cut; where shamanistic lessons are learned. Which brings me to the biggest reason for attending reunions: finding out what people are up to. Leaping forward ten years in time and seeing whether people had aged well, or not so well. Have they aged like Clooney, or aged like they’d just looked directly at the Ark of the Covenant? Did they have kids? Did they bring their kids? WHY did they bring their kids? Or are the kids here actually classmates who pissed off a gypsy? Wait, was our art teacher a gypsy? That would explain why there was a creepy caravan parked in the playground. Although I do seem to recall being taught about sex in that caravan by a giraffe.”
I am no longer the chameleon that tries to fit in. My life is surrounded with friends and family that love, support and accept me. I also know who I am, why I am and I simply don’t feel the need to reconnect with my past. Its taken years of self development, purging of relationships, a major illness and some pretty huge life lessons to become the person I am today. I really like this version of ME and it took a lot of hard work to get here. The people that are in my life are because I want them there. Why invite all that old drama back in…………….no thanks!
Quote from http://www.thevine.com.au/life/oh-dear/state-of-the-reunion-why-i-dont-need-a-high-school-reunion-20141114-290095/
