So I just had my 10 year high school reunion this weekend, and it's a funny thing about reunions...no matter how much you think you won't or try not to be affected by the past and who you were then, you inevitably fall into your same role. Perhaps just for a brief moment before you realize how utterly ridiculous it is that you have become your teenage self again, or maybe you never notice and end up hanging out with your old friends all night recreating those old high school cliques unwittingly. Either way, you are not immune to the mysterious power that is and was your adolescence, and I was no exception. I was excited to go to my reunion, even though the realization that I was really that old was a bit unnerving. I knew that I was a different person now than I was back then, that I've been one of those who has come into her own after graduation, and I was ready to shine. Don't get me wrong, I loved my time at RHS, maybe more in memory than in actuality roaming those halls day in and day out, and I was not looking forward to all the "what do you do now?" questions...but I was confident and that right there made all the difference. To say I was shy back in high school is an understatement, I was really shy, really quiet, really insecure, and yet...I wanted nothing else but to not be. This is not to be mistaken with soft spoken or timid, I had no problem telling you what was on my mind...but only if you talked to me first. I hated the fact that I gravitated to the corners of the room, that I stood in silence instead of standing in the spotlight making jokes, but what could I do? I mean still I have those moments of self doubt in social situations but hell, I'm an actor and you'll be damned if I let those rule my life anymore. I thought I'd go into the reunion confident and strong and ready to talk to people and find out how they too have changed...only to find that none of us really did change...or did we?
Ok, so maybe I'm not being fair. I know for a fact that some of us did. Take my friend who I went with for example, a wonderful vibrant confident and undoubtedly gorgeous woman who back in senior high was, believe it or not, quieter than even me. Seriously, I had to convince her to even go to our prom. Back then she was the same wonderful sweet and beautiful girl as she is now...just add ten years, a bottle of peroxide, some stilleto heels, and confidence that is unassuming yet sparkling with self assurance and you've got a force to be reckoned with. You've also got a girl who had no problem working the room and laughed at the end of the night recalling how may people had said they didn't remember her in high school. Seriously, I admired her and the ease at which she appeared to have shed her 17 year old self. I wasn't quite so lucky and noticed myself playing it safe most the night, talking to people that I had known at least slightly well (or as well as a quiet shy girl could have) back in High School during the reunion. I mean to be honest we all knew everyone we graduated regardless of whether or not we had ever actually spoken to them only having a class of around 300...and of the 75 or so that showed up to the event most of them were all people you'd expect to see there...people from roughly the same social circles that overlapped from time to time or had mingled at parties (or shown up to them) back in the day. There were the leadership crowed, the partiers, the "cool jocks" (because we most definitely had the uncool ones too), the ones that went to the dances and the football games and hung out in the front parking lot for lunch and after school. The ones that if my High School had been a movie...were the ones the movie would undoubtedly include as the semi cool kids, the ones you'd expect to go off to good colleges and join fraternities and sororities (and I'm pretty certain most of us did just that). The "ultra" cool kids who cut class and smoked cigarettes, the "mean girls," the "drama freaks," the "nerds," well most of them were mia this Friday night...minus a stray straggler here and there.
This is not to say everyone that was there that night had been part of the same circle because we were not, but generally speaking there were no huge surprise appearances, and no crazy "omg did you see so and so" moments. Yes. We all looked pretty much the same...if not better than we had back then. At least those of us who came, but back to the point. Sometime in the night I remember looking around and realizing how strange it was. I saw what I would have considered my group of friends at the photo booth, all getting ready to take photos and contemplated joining them because after all, wasn't I part of their group? And yet, I stopped, I hesitated, instead of running over and joining in on the fun I told myself no, they were better friends, I was just on the outskirts of that group, quiet and doubtful...and I watched them from afar take a set of group photos that I should have been in. So strange too, because looking back there is no way that I would have done anything but add to that photo, for those WERE my friends back then...yet I was momentarily frozen with the same insecurities that I had in high school. The fear of imposing where I was not welcome, where I may not belong in someone else's eyes...that same fear that kept me shy and quiet back then was again holding me back now. And I realized as I looked at my classmates...I was not alone. True some of them were off comfortably mingling with people they may not have been friends with back in the day, but most of them were sticking to those friends that they had been the closest too... reminiscing no doubt and reconnecting in some cases...but also staying where they felt most comfortable, back in those social cliques we all stuck to that helped us not feel so alone in those lost years of youth. By the end of the reunion everyone remaining had either made enough trips to the bar or come to the same realization that I had and begun to loose those old teenage inhibitions and return to their normal adult selves and that's when the fun really began. That's when you had conversations with people you never talked to before, when you approached your old crush to see who they were now, when you realized that you were missing out on some really awesome people, or that people you thought were awesome really didn't stack up. And yes, I'm most definitely referring to my own personal experience here.
But in the end, I guess what the moral of the story is, the entire reason for taking you my reader down this rabbit hole of memory lane with me...is that no matter how much we think we've changed, no matter how far we've come in our lives...we really are always who were back then. And I'm not just talking about High School, but at every point in our lives, the high moments, the lows, and everything in between. Yes people change, people grow, we are never the exact same person we were just moments before...but we never escape the past, for the past has made us what we are now. We should embrace it, not run from it, even if we think it did nothing but inhibit us. It should be a strength within us, not something we cover up and try to hide away.
I am the shy, quiet, horribly insecure girl I was then. But that is my strength, not my weakness. I am also a wonderful, confident, strong woman who is not afraid to go after her dreams...and stand here today before you and say...
I'm done running away from my past, done trying to forget things and mistakes I have made. Perhaps it's easy for me to say, I have not made any giant irreversible stumbles on my path to who I am now...but we all have had our moments. Regardless, we should not dwell on those times rather look how far we have come, look how much stronger, better, more amazing we are now. And if you cannot relate...then maybe it is time you looked at your past, and re-evaluated who you are now, who you think you are, and who you want to be.
All in all, I'm glad I went. It was a lot different than I had expected, though I'm not quite sure what it was that I thought I was going to be experiencing. I know for one thing though, it was a lot weirder than I had thought it would be, and yet still a lot of fun (granted the multiple trips to the bar to visit my friend Jamie and coke may have helped with that a bit). I do wish though, that more people had gone, that the people that hung out on the fringes of the student body had proudly walked into that room and been able to do what my friend did so well...and me, well, less well...been comfortable with who we are now, and shown those who we may have looked up to or shied away from, that we are and always were just as amazing as ever.
Be strong, be happy, be wonderful, be you.
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