Recently I joined a Facebook page for my high school graduating class. It seemed like a good idea at the time. But after several days of reading and remembering, of reliving the “shooting fish in a barrel” social milieu, I reconsidered. It was about 3 lifetimes ago. Life goes on, and I could too.
I had thought the Facebook page would be a simple way to keep track of folks. Maybe hear what they had been doing, what they ended up in as careers, who they married, kids, etc. I hoped to reconnect with some friends that I’d not heard from in a while. The page seemed to be more of a mutual congratulation society for the clique who ran things in high school. They were known as “The Jets.” Mostly, the page was scanned photos from the yearbook and comments to their besties about how hawt they were back in the day. Puh.leese.
Don’t get me wrong. I had some good friends in high school. But when we graduated, and I went to college (and some of them did not); our lives went in different directions. We didn’t keep in touch.
After a few years of teaching, I moved out of state and never moved back. Buying a plane ticket to attend socials and reunions just wasn’t in my budget, nor a priority on my calendar. (No offense, but if you are plugging a “big reunion” and it’s just a cook-out at a park, I’m not going to travel 500 miles for that. Sorry.)
The thought of putting my beloved Bearded Brewer through it was also not appealing for either of us! (Besides, if I were going to take him to ANYTHING from my ancient past, it would be to an Ohio State football game, where he could experience Script Ohio, and the fun of 100,000 people clapping and singing together. There’s nothing like a Saturday afternoon of Big Ten football!)
So yeah. I looked over the pictures. Thought about my teachers and friends. Remembered some of the less wonderful moments of being in high school, and some of the better ones. Considered how my path had wandered here and there in the years since. And decided that I didn’t need to go back. Maybe when it’s my 50th reunion. We’ll see.
An Unfinished Symphony 
I find it really bizarre that people of that age are still obsessed with high school and are carrying that obsession out in public on a Facebook group. I had an extremely tight-knit group of friends in H.S. and are still close with them. (Of course, it helps that I’m married to one of them…) I’ve also used Facebook to reconnect with a few friends that I wasn’t good at keeping track. But when I get together with my HS friends or look at their Facebook pages, it’s all about what they are doing now, never what they were doing in HS. And I’ve certainly graduated far more recently than you.
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Exactly, Shannon! It’s NOT that I didn’t enjoy (the enjoyable parts of) high school. It’s that I don’t live there any more, and don’t want to go back. We move on. Or, well, most of us do. 🙂
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