Monday, August 11, 2008

Growing Up

Are you on MySpace? Or Facebook? Despite their reputations for being teenybopper meat markets, they have served me well in recent times. I've been able to reconnect with people I haven't seen in ages.

It's amazing how time flies. It's amazing how people change.

Law school and college classmates are no big deal. I graduated from law school in 2001. I graduated from college in 1998. It hasn't been that long. I knew these people in their young adulthood, when basic personalities had already long been formed.

But high school is different. Elementary school, too. Yes, elementary school! So very different. Reading the profiles of various faces from my past is incredibly interesting.

I didn't keep in touch with anyone from high school. I don't really have a good explanation why. I suppose I could chalk it up to moving across the country. After all, in the mid-'90s, the Internet wasn't anything like what it is now. Even cell phones were somewhat of a rarity.

However, I don't even think these are the reasons why I didn't maintain contact.

When I left for college, I was determined to reinvent myself. I wanted to leave high school behind. High school was awkward. I was awkward.

College made it really easy for me to shed my old skin and grow a new one. In college, everyone was a nerd. In fact, people were a hundred times nerdier than I was. And, all of a sudden, people thought I was funny. And, all of a sudden, people liked me. It was unlike anything I'd ever felt. It was...awesome.

Now on Facebook, I can see what became of my high school classmates -- the jocks, the cheerleaders, the orchestra kids, everyone.

Time is an equalizer, my friends.

It's funny that, with age, we become more similar. I'd always thought that differences would be magnified in adulthood. Not so. It's much easier relating to people now than it was then.

Maybe it's me. Maybe I've finally grown into myself. Maybe I've learned to be happy with who I am.

Maybe this is what it means to become an adult.

23 comments:

  1. i'm not friends with hardly anyone from my high school days (2 to be exact). not sure why. maybe because they all sucked?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm like you, when I visit my hometown and see highschool people, I duck and cover. No interest in hearing from them. My best friend is from jr. high and that's about it.

    However, we do grow more similiar with time. My Adult Development and Aging Psychology class explains this. Wierd but interesting.

    ReplyDelete
  3. i totally feel you. luckily, i do have a few HS friends that i do keep in contact with and were real friends then and now.

    it was fun not being as awkward flagpole when college rolled around. :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. I was really awkward in high school too :X Thank goodness for college.

    [whispering] I'm addicted to myspace-stalking people I knew in high school.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I am on both myspace and facebook, and I'm fairly sure we're friends on myspace. I never log in, though, so I can't remember. I have an account on facebook, but I've never taken the time to really use the site.

    For me, junior high was the time of great awkwardness in my life. I actually had fun in high school and enjoyed it quite a bit - but I ilke adulthood better.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I'm friends with a lot of people who went to my high school. Although, I wasn't friends with them until college. Weird. I am very grateful to myspace for reuniting me with some old friends, but I don't investigate on there anymore. I guess I feel I've seen what I needed to see. And I'm still resisting facebook.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I relate to so much in this post, especially the conscious decision to reinvent myself at the start of college.

    Oddly enough it was a high school friend that I hadn't been in contact with for years that clued me in to Facebook. Since then I've come across so many people from the past (in a good way).

    ReplyDelete
  8. Amen, sister.
    I think it's interesting so many commenters, including myself, profess to being awkward in HS then finding themselves in college.

    ReplyDelete
  9. So it's no secret that I completely idolize certain people. Back in Jr. High it was this girl Sarah. I thought she was the coolest person ever because she was smart, funny, and didn't care two bits what anyone thought. She moved in 9th grade and I moved the year after so we lost touch. We just recently reconnected and its funny because both of us are exactly how the other would picture them - guess people don't change that much.

    She questioned my why I never am on facebook and I admitted its because I completely don't know how to work those sites or what do when I'm on them. Sometimes, despite my age, I'm such an old lady.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Nice post. I think I wanted to reinvent myself in high school. Started smoking the ganga (lol), partying, drinking, not giving a shit. Yeah, I made some mistakes, but it was part of my evolution. So I don't regret it at all.

    I still see all of the old high school crowd on FB. People really don't change.

    Or maybe, it's just that we weren't as different as we once thought we were.

    You know what else is a great equalizer? Money.

    ReplyDelete
  11. lol I think i'm the only loser who hasn't joined facebook. I actually do have a profile from about 4 years ago under my maiden name that I had when I was in college- but I think i'd become a wastecase stalker if I rejoined.

    which.could.actually.be.kinda.fun.

    ReplyDelete
  12. I can't bring myself to join another on-line community so I've never signed up for FB. I've got MS though and it has connected me with a few peeps I lost touch with. Time does funny things to people.

    High school wasn't my awkward time, I hated me in Jr. High above all else. I guess that's a good thing since I never went away to college and couldn't use that time to be someone else.

    ReplyDelete
  13. i actually had the worst time in elementary school, of all things. jr. high was great and HS (except for the last month) was fantastic.

    still, i don't keep in contact with anyone from HS, mostly due to a bunch of drama that went down weeks before we all graduated. sad, but at the same time, i made some great friends and college that will be in my life always.

    ReplyDelete
  14. So, did you have one of those crazy Zach Morris phones in the mid-90's (http://www.oaktreeent.com/web_photos/Telephones/Motorola_Cellular-One_Cell-Phone_web.jpg)?

    You're quite right - and I love checking out who has put on the pounds :-)

    ReplyDelete
  15. i can say for damn sure that i'm not the quiet, shy little mouse i was in high school anymore.

    ya think??

    ReplyDelete
  16. Funny you blogged about this yesterday...I finally signed myself up for Facebook and I've already reconnected with 2 old high school friends! The internet is amazing, and thank goodness time is so forgiving!

    ReplyDelete
  17. I have a myspace AND a facebook.

    I know what you mean though.....

    I know for me, Im much more assertive now and more outgoing then i was back in high school.

    I only have one friend that is still my bestie from HS AND Junior high.

    I like to see change in people....its cool to be able to reflect on how they WERE and now how they ARE.

    I find it interesting.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Time is the great equalizer. So true.

    ReplyDelete
  19. I relate to so much of what you wrote. I went off to "reinvent" myself when I moved to NYC for law school. But I had always kept in touch with my high school friends. That's part of what has made my experience so special to me. I took such a different path, and yet, as you point out, we grow more alike as time goes on. I love that I have had the same group of friends for over 20 years. We've been through so much of life's ups and downs together and watched each other grow into amazing women.

    As far as Myspace, I hardly ever check my account but I love that I've reconnected with so many random people on there.

    ReplyDelete
  20. I point and laugh at the high school crowd now on Myspace. :)

    Every day I get a good hearty chuckle. Time certainly is an equalizer...

    ReplyDelete
  21. i agree. i lost touch with all of my friends from high school, and now i am friends with a few of them on facebook. it is fun to see what some of them are doing.

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...