High School Confidential

Recently, I ran into someone I knew in high school. Not a friend per se, as I didn't have many of those; but someone I had shared several classes with over my four years in hell.

She asked me why I had chosen not to attend the recent high school reunion. Of the boundless and valid answers I could have given, I simply shrugged and said I didn't feel like it.

This wasn't a lie. I truly had no desire to see people whom I didn't particularly like then gloating and preening with their accordion-fold picture collections of their prize-winning children.

Bitter, you say?

Not in the least.
As much as they were choosy in who they accepted into their midst, I was just as choosy about who I hung with...although not for the same reasons.

Twenty years doesn't really change people all that much in the long run. Most of the girls who excluded me from their circles in high school would most certainly exclude me from their country clubs, charity drives and church groups today. I'd like to say I'm choked up about that...but I'd be lying.

My small but close-knit group of odd and outcast friends has pretty much stayed intact over the years. We keep in touch, though we are spread all over the country now. We aren't fastidious about contact - but we do communicate - thanks to the internet. There are a few who have fallen out of sight...one or two who have fallen all together.

I need no organized event to remind me of who I was - and who others were as well. Nor do I need to attempt to validate my existence and accomplishments to those who did and still do practice one-upmanship as a sport.

High school.
Bad enough the first time around, I think.
Why waste 15 years of therapy just to get a t-shirt and a whole new complex?