“High school, you don’t want to go back and do it over again.” – Marguerite Moreau
It’s been 25 years since I graduated from high school. And as is customary, my graduating class has arranged a high school reunion to commemorate the milestone.
I didn’t attend any of my previous reunions and honestly, I have no plans to attend this or any other future high school reunions.
Understand that I have no animosity towards any of my former classmates. But I wouldn’t classify my years in high school as rewarding or memorable.
High school was another life – a part of my past which has no place in my present or my future.
While some would gladly trade their current circumstances for a chance to relive their skewed reality of high school life all over again, for me it was a time of awkwardness and self-loathing. Of judgements and bullying. A place bursting with feelings of alienation and anxiety around every corner.
While I have no issue with others longing to celebrate the 25th anniversary, I look back on my four years and see very little worth remembering, revisiting or celebrating.
Mandy Hales writes, “To get over the past, you first have to accept that the past is over. No matter how many times you revisit it, analyze it, regret it, or sweat it…it’s over. It can hurt you no more.”
The last 25 years of my life have been an interesting and surprising journey filled with opportunities, inspirations and blessings.
As I sit in my home in Colorado, my wife peacefully sleeping beside me under the warmth of a blanket, I’m reminded that each stage of our life is there for a reason – a purpose we eventually learn many years later.
For me, when it comes to my days in high school, that lesson is resilience.
Deb Caletti, author of The Six Rules of Maybe, writes, “High school wasn’t the actual world, that it was more like a temporary alternate reality you were forced to believe in for four years. A video game you played, where you could never get to the next level no matter how hard you tried.”
Thankfully, the game is over.