Fifteen Years Later

On May 22, I celebrated my fifteen-year anniversary of high school graduation. It's funny because I don't remember very much from that day. I do remember wearing the white gown and cap, delivering a speech, that dress I wore, saying good-bye to friends and star girls and being very, very excited to be done with high school. In facebooking, there's this tendency to be very nostalgic and have all sorts of fond memories of school, like everything was wonderful and you were all such tight friends back then and there weren't crappy days or lonely days or days when you just wanted to be on your own, starting over in a new city far, far away from Detroit. Fifteen years later, you are the same person with the same regrets and the same memories but clouded by years of other stuff. You view those days through the lens of a 33 year old, with a bit of nostalgia despite it all. I think it's because you hear about Gossip Girls-esque shows where high school seems so wonderful and glamorous and money and grades and introversion and social sophistication don't seem to mean anything. You weren't terribly lonely or lacking a boyfriend or drawn in some insular world of television and dreams and wondering where life would lead you.

The curiousity about where and what some girls are up to is gone now, for some. I think the same feelings of insecurity, and of not living up to potential, and not being socially sophisticated linger. But other things, good things, happier things exist, and I can't ever wish to go back to being 18. I'm happier being 33, with a job (even this one), and a home and a husband. And friends, real ones, not ghosts on a webpage. I enjoy the here and now so much more.