High School
Would you go back to high school if you could? Some people dream about it. Maybe they'd go back with their new knowledge, new confidence, better choices! Me? Once is enough!
In fact, I haven't even gone to my reunions so far. Maybe for the 30th?!
Anyway, this topic has been on my mind lately, probably because I keep getting new fb friends from high school, or seeing suggestions for them.
When I see people on here I haven't seen for a long time, I notice a few things: sometimes my memory of them is really sharp as in I can picture them I can hear them I can think of an anecdote or more I can associate them with others and sort of group them ... all the way to it's really fuzzy I recognize their name but that's about it, like it's in there somewhere, like I should know them...their name rings that bell but! I'm at a loss!
I guess that's aging for you? It's been nearly 30 years and all since I graduated, so...
What?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Then I think, does this person remember me? This person who I have a set idea of or cannot remember at all...do they remember me? Then I think what was I even like in high school. If you're reading this and you can answer that question, please do. I'll return the favour, even if I don't really remember you it'll be a good exercise of reaching through those cobwebs. Maybe you can prompt me with something, ok?
I never knew if I was "popular" or not. That ever-important-high school-pedestal! "Popular"! My kids even use that word. So, I guess it's still a thing. My Mom, I always knew, was "popular" in high school and I knew that cause she was a cheerleader! Cheerleaders are always among The Popular Ones. I certainly was not. Sometimes I'd think how unfair it was that it seemed like both my Mom and my Dad had been "popular" kids and somehow I just wasn't. Oh the tunnel vision we can have!
Like, I didn't reeeeeeeeeallllly care, but...I did. Closest I got to "popular" was someone nominated me to be a Lakefair Princess representative from my school, so I had to get a special outfit and prepare a speech. My Mom was especially jazzed, maybe she thought I'd finally Made It, like she had! Hit the high school big times! I remember the outfit I got, I think it was from JC Penny. Mom helped me pick it out. I never shopped at Pennies but maybe they were having a sale or something? It was navy blue with small white vertical lines going down it, so I guess you'd call it pin striped? It had an above the knee skirt, a modest yet flattering (hello that's the key!) matching v-neck tank, and then this jacket sort of thing in the same fabric, with one button and a looped elastic that hooked it together. Probably I got new shoes for it too, but I don't remember those. Probably they were strappy with a thick 70s-esque heel...cause, the 70s were in in the 90s, just like the 90s are in now. Or, I think we've moved on to the early 2000s (yuck!).
I gave my speech, was completely nervous but I don't think I bombed it or anything. No idea what it was about, maybe how I'd be Such A Great Representative for my school! Ha! How could I have said those things authentically? I didn't care!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But I tried, cause someone nominated me. So I played pretend. You know the saying "fake it till you make it"? I guess that sometimes works but only if your heart is in it.
No memory of who out won me, and still no idea who nominated me. I treasure you, though, you nominator person out there. Treasure you! You saw something in me that I did not!
I had friends, I had style, I did well in my classes, I "belonged" (to whatever extent teenagers/humans can feel they "belong" I guess) but, if my group didn't have the same lunch period as me I did sometimes just sit by myself, rather than stretch my shyness to some risky situation where no one would talk to me anyway. I'd sit by myself over by the cafeteria windows, propped up on the heaters or something. Why did I do that? Certainly wasn't the place to sit if you did not want anyone to seeeeeeeee you sitting by yourself!!!
It hurt, sitting by myself like that. Sometimes verge of tears just don't think of it you can get thru this kind of hurt. It'll be over soon kind of hurt. You'll have to do it again kind of hurt so you better just toughen up.
It was totally avoidable, I could've just...(now that I think about it) tried to sit with other people! (Is that what The Popular people did?)
But, we run in packs, we high schoolers. Without my pack I guess I felt a little lost.
My pack and I, were we cool? Were we...popular? I think I always thought the rest of them were more-so than I was, but whatever, not a huge deal. They were mine and I belonged, aside from the usual dramas between high school girls. Oh the days of passing notes! Today's girls have to be much more thick skinned, vulnerable to that feeling of "left out" so much more often with social media! "Why wasn't I invited?!" "What? They went without me?" As an adult I've had thoughts like this (even recently, to be honest!)--but they pass so quickly. They don't punch so deeply. They kind of just make me laugh, in the end. But when you're in it and it hurts it really hurts. My pack and I, we had our moments. But, I belonged.
My school, Suburbanish Hippieish Olympia High School. The building's gone! Gone gone gone. New new new! Lots of skaters during my time, lots of I'm-in-a-band kinds of people, football (America!), homecoming dances (America!). We had a closed campus and so we had to stay there all day. No leaving to get food or whatever else at lunch. Most of us were jealous of those other schools that could leave at lunch without getting into trouble. Once I left early with a boyfriend and we did get in trouble and had to come in to mow the lawn on a Saturday (oh no a guaranteed date with my boyfriend, haha!). I don't think my parents ever found out.
About that or so much else!
Drives out to Boston Harbour! Parties! So many parties! Smoking my first cigarette in the back of a friend's pick up truck right after school. (Oh that first drag where I did it all wrong...I'm sure many of us can relate.) Informal after basketball game dances that were PACKED full of sweaty bodies and I felt I could really let loose! All that 90s hip hop and r&b in our quite suburbanish/old houses by the State Capitol vibe but with those kind of sketchy hippie parents who I'm sure had STORIES let me tell you. Stories beyond the High School cheerleader kind. Get my Dad talking about his high school in Brazil and...well... Anyway, I can still smell the autumn evening air of a football game, hanging out under the bleachers to get snacks or see who's who, climbing back up to watch the action and hear the band cheer along with us. (What is this, an episode of The Wonder Years? Ha!)
Do I sound old? Have I reached the point in life where I tell the same stories over and over and over and over again? Note to self I'm writing about high school right now. Check!
One time I walked into the cafeteria with some friends and this huge group of guys was like pointing to one of their friends (who shall remain nameless here but wow do I have diaries and no I haven't read this story recently cause those diaries make me CRINGE!!!) and one of the guys (who I actually always had such a special crush on) says to me, about his friend, "He wants to jump your bones!" Soon that *he* was my first boyfriend at the tender age of 14ish and once before we broke up we even held hands at school! Hahahahahaha. No, he was not the one I left campus with.
Those times walking through the halls between buildings, alongside people's lockers. The crowdedness of it all. Who would I see?! What might happen between class?! On breaks?! That little store where lots of go-getter-"good"-popular-jock-smarty-joiner type people hung out. That girl who was always mean to me--in and out of that group--the only one mean to me. But, she was mean to me, and it stung. In front of people. Probably I'm the only one who remembers. I think she was just jealous of my hair, so there (ha!).
That guy who I always had a special crush on, skateboarding in that covered space under the library. Wow. I'd recognize his name any day on here haha but no I would not jump to friend them. Let's let that memory stay as-is I am sure he wouldn't even remember me anyway!
High School. Thinking about it brings up all the things High School.
I've been wanting to tell this story forever so here goes: the epitome of it all! So, we lived in a new development all middle-class. In high school some of my friends (who yes, now that I think of it, were definitely cooler than me cause see what follows) well, they had some connection to some guy in our grade who could come by and pick us up for school. A couple of us lived near one another, so we were able to do a carpool thing. (Who would EVER want to ride the SCHOOL BUS to high school! And I wasn't allowed to drive to school consistently / until much later, so...and really no public transit around that we knew of...school too far to walk...bike to school? Who did that?) Anyway, so this guy whose name starts with a K would come and pick us up, with a friend or two of his. He drove some kind of beat up silver station wagon and you could hear him from wayyyyy down the street--that BASS! I wonder what the neighbours thought? He'd be blasting Bone Thugs 'n Harmony and stuff like that, just blasting it, this very white red headed and freckled with braces guy. Who was SO KIND to consistently pick us up! But! So funny, this memory! Usually all the windows would be down cause they'd all be smoking in the car, too. A great way to start the day!
It makes me think of that meme where there's this white girl about 13 years old in the 90s and it's like "In 1992 I looked like this, and I listened to this" and it's got a picture of Coolio singing Gangsta's Paradise. Like, how did that happen?
Grunge makes more sense. But, Bone Thugs 'n Harmony?!!!!
We had radio stations, that's why. 107.7 The End and 93.3 Kube 93. That's why.
On top of Mix 96fm where I thank for all my soft rock soul soothers life builders.
The radio stations then were DIFFERENT, they played DIFFERENT music, you had OPTIONS! These days I don't hear that as much but maybe, again, I'm just sounding old.
Have I mentioned it's been nearly 30 years? Since high school?
Well we're all boomers and gen x and millenials here on fb so honestly I'm preaching to the choir. You know!
What about the teachers, though? I guess I had those in high school. Remember Mr. O the very-likely-alcoholic who very-likely kept bottles of booze in his desk drawers? I didn't learn anything in US History! Only how to copy outlines of information from overheads! Rest his soul, that Mr. O!
Mr. Curtis, he was a good teacher. I learned all about the Roman Emperors there. Wow Nero was sure a scumbag, Mr. Curtis! Thanks!!!
Ms. Byrd. Almost got to go to a Shakespeare festival in Oregon with her but wtf (which I would NEVER say in high school) but wtf the CLASS OF '97 you RUINED IT FOR ME!! Something about the year before and alcohol, tsk tsk tsk come ON! I loved her class. It was hard, but I did well and she made Shakespeare come alive.
That economics teacher with the glasses! Yes, he brought the PRACTICAL to it all with talk of TAXES and how to DO them!
Ms. Pope (I'm sure she was a "Ms.", that pretty and tan middle aged blonde lady). She got me into psychology, out there in that portable. So, this psych major thanks her greatly!
Choir. Yeah well I won't recognize this teacher by name cause he never let me sing in his small group (hold grudges? yes?!) but, choir was powerful! I loved singing around all those voices, feeling that moving music as it all came together. I graduated from standing in a sideways nervous fashion on the front riser to much more confidence by senior year. I even have the black dress I had to get for it still! Going in to that room, on the side of the building there, with all those people from all those different kinds of groups, brought together with singing! Lalalalala! Lovely. Never too cool or too unpopular feeling for that.
Sorry, high school teachers, I don't remember the rest of you! You're in here somewhere, though.
Maybe it was one of you teachers who nominated me for that thing. You quietly believed in me! You didn't care that I sometimes sat along the heaters by the windows by myself at lunch! That I skipped school with a boyfriend, did all kinds of dumb stuff out and back and forth between Boston Harbor. You didn't care that I wasn't and never-wanted-to-be a cheerleader.
..................
I'd go back to being a kid, the early days of motherhood, re-do special trips I took. But go back to setting my alarm for 6am every day for years, feeling that constant peer pressure, sitting thru class after class after class after class--watching that clock tick tick tick tick tick, coming home to hours of homework, thinking that was all there was to life! -- without the perspective I have now -- yeah, no thanks.
But, hashtag "Mom, what were you like in the 90s?"...yeah no my kids have never really asked me, so. But! I don't have a problem re-visiting that! Like I said, I was cool hahahahahahahaha. I'd go catch that cool again--even if it was just a fake-it-till-you (someday)-make-it kind of cool. I'd like to think it nestled in there somewhere. Hey, it takes cool to sit by yourself on top of heaters at lunch, ha! (Oh, 17 year old me, hug / pat on the back / high five!!)
Oly High class of '98, you have a special place in my heart. And it's only taken me nearly 30 years to realize that! It'll really be the bomb and super fresh when we get to chillax together for that next reunion. I haven't gotten much better at small talk though, so I sure hope there are heaters to sit on. I'll be waitin for ya!
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