I know a whole mess of people that love to say, "I wish I could go back to high school. It was so much easier back then." For those people, I have to assume that high school was a fun time. I have to assume that they have parents that didn't make them work or, at the very least, allowed them to spend the money they earned on fun things. I have to assume that they were the popular kids or, at the very least, had a crowd of people they loved to be with at school functions. I have to assume that their high school experience was very different.
For me, high school was not a time I would wish to re-live.....ever.......or anything like it.
Did I have good times? Of course I did. Did I have great friends? Of course. Some of those friends I still talk to. I also had to change schools multiple times and move between states. I also had to live through the popular girls teasing me. I lived through anxiety-driven shyness and inability to feel good in my own skin. I would not want to re-live that.
Oh, don't get me wrong. Realistically, there are a whole lot of people that don't change at all from high school on behaviorally or socially. There are plenty of people who go on to get jobs and still practice the same mean girl tactics. There are plenty of people who view cheating on their spouses the same way that they viewed cheating on their steady girlfriend back then. There are plenty of people who will still play the "I'm more popular than you" game and there are plenty of girls that are still sleeping around looking for attention. I guess those 20 something years that are meant to "find yourself" weren't very productive for those. These are the girls that were relentless to pick on you back then and now want to "friend" you on Facebook. Bite me, B, you were awful to me and I'm pretty sure you're just as awful now so unless you're "friending" me to apologize, don't waste your time.
For the people that have grown up and changed, that's wonderful. The way I feel, though, is that some people are friends for a reason and some for a season. The ones that were just meant to be high school friends? Well, we grew apart after high school and I'm okay with that. We had a lot of fond memories to share and I'm so grateful for those. However, we moved on with our lives...and I'm not sad. I wish them the best.
The real friends, the ones that I've kept in touch with, grew with me. They didn't necessarily make the exact same decisions or do the exact same things but they grew with me. We were all branches on the same tree; no matter how far apart we grew, we all shared the same trunk. Do we have funny high school memories? Yes! Do we share even better memories since then? Abso-friggin-lutely.
Remember the next time that you tell a high schooler, "Oh you'll miss this," that not all of them will. Some of them just need to hear "Enjoy it as much as you can and muscle through because it only gets better from here."
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